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HELIANTHUS 



















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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 


HELIANTHUS 


BY 

OUID'A 

AUTHOR OF “UNDER TWO FLAGS,” “MOTHS,” 
ETC., ETC. 

Rj- ^ , cA-v^- 4 - 


Nefo gork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1908 

All rights reserved 


T 2 3 

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LIBSA&y CONGRESS! 
iwv C«-<u*$ Rfti.K'veo 

SEP (8 . iy08 

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class a. aac, *«.j 


Copyright, 1908, 

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1908. 



Norfocob $regg 

J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 


, 19 ; > 9 1 - 2 . 


PUBLISHERS’ NOTE 


4 


This novel is the last work of the gifted writer who 
was so widely known during her lifetime under the 
nom de plume of “ Ouida.” Illness and other causes 
retarded her in writing the story, which, as a matter 
of fact, was planned and outlined some years ago. 
Fortunately, however, the chapters had been set up 
in type as they were written ; and as it was obvious 
that the story had nearly reached its end, it has been 
judged best to publish it, without alteration or addi- 
tion, exactly in the form in which it was left by its 
author after having been revised by her in proof. 


r 



CHAPTER I 


The sun was setting over the sea of the west, and 
its glow shone on the beautiful and classic city of 
Helios, the capital of the ancient land of Helianthus. 

In the long and stately streets, clouds of dust were 
golden with the sad reflection of an unseen glory 
which is, at such an hour, all that many thousands of 
the dwellers in cities enjoy of the beauty of evening. 
The thoroughfares of the capital were full of people, 
and down the central street of all, so famous in 
history, a cavalcade was passing, a military feast for 
the eyes of a population which was not allowed many 
other pleasures. On either side of the street, which 
had been in great part widened, altered, modernised, 
made monotonous and correct, white marble was the 
chief architectural feature, and great white palaces 
towered towards the clear sky, which was blue, deeply 
blue, like the bells of the wild hyacinth. Striped 
awnings, scarlet and white, the national colours, 
stretched over the balconies ; there were flags 
drooping from gilded flagstaff's in most of the 
windows, from most of the doorways ; the flowers 
which had been cast down from above on to the pave- 
ment were already trodden into the dust, and there was 


2 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP, 


a curious odour of natural and artificial perfumes, of 
burnt powder, of trampled roses, of hot flesh, equine 
and human, steaming from the heat of the past day. 
Porphyry pillars, galleries of gilded metal, of pierced 
woodwork, or of bronze arabesques, sculptured 
porticoes, painted shrines, plate-glass shop-fronts, 
hanging tapestries, frescoed frontages, shone in the 
amber luminance of the early evening. The dull- 
coloured clothing of a metropolitan crowd was largely 
broken up by the deep yellows, the red purples, the 
light blues, the dark crimsons, of the costumes of the 
country, and of the seafaring peoples, and by the 
uniforms of the soldiery lining the edges of the 
pavements ; great bursts of martial music enlivened 
the air ; the brilliancy of sunset lent to the scene a 
gaiety not its own. 

Despite the passing of two thousand years the 
capital of Helianthus was still a beautiful and 
classic city, throned on its eternal hills, with the 
semicircle of its shore washed by the Mare Magnum, 
and the mountains on the opposite side of the 
bay soaring to the clouds, and often capped by 
snow until the month of May. Modernity, the 
brutal and blundering Cyclops who misconceives 
himself to be a fruitful and beneficent deity, had 
struck his stupid blows at its temples, its domes, 
its towers, its palaces, had strewn its soil with 
shattered marbles, had felled its sacred laurel 
groves, had sullied or silenced its falling or rushing 
waters, had befouled with smoke its white marble 
colonnades, its towering palm plumes, its odorous 
gardens. Modernity had driven his steam-roller 
over the narcissus, the hyacinth, the cheiranthus ; 
and steam pistons throbbed where the doves of 


I 


HELIANTHUS 


3 


Aphrodite had nested. But the city was still noble 
through the past, and unspeakably fair through those 
portions of unviolated heritage which it retained; 
and its domes and minarets and bell-towers still 
shone in the light of the sun or the moon against 
the deep green of its cypress and cedar groves. 

Many of its streets were still untouched; its 
women still carried their bronze jars to its fountains; 
its avenues of planes, and tulip-trees, and magnolias, 
were not all destroyed, though defiled by the shriek- 
ing tramway engines, the stinking automobiles, and 
though their boughs were often cruelly hacked and 
cut away to leave free passage for these modern gods, 
the electric wire and the petrol car. Ever and 
again, some porphyry basin whose waters gleamed 
beneath the great green leafage of sycamores ; some 
colossal figure of hero or of deity ; some silent stately 
arcade, with the sea glistening beyond its arches ; 
some sun-browned, mighty, crenellated wall ; some 
vast palace with ogive windows, and gratings elabo- 
rately wrought, and bronze doors in basso-relievo, 
and deep overhanging roofs, and machicolated 
towers, — these would recall all that Helios had been 
in ages when its white oxen were sacrificed to gods 
who are now remembered only in the nomenclature 
of the constellations of the sky, and its poets, who 
are still quoted by mankind, were crowned with the 
wild olive and the laurel in its holy places. With 
furious haste whole quarters had been torn down 
and swept aside and replaced by the mindless, ignoble, 
and monotonous constructions of the present time; 
but other quarters still remained where the native 
population thronged together, gay in their poverty 
and mirthful in their rags, although hunger lay 


4 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


down with them at night and arose with them in the 
morning, continual companion of their working 
hours. For a brief space on this festal day they 
ceased from labour, and tried to forget their starva- 
tion in the sight of their rulers and the soldiery of 
this imperial and military spectacle. 

The King had already passed, with his beloved 
friend and nephew, one of those friends to be kissed 
on both cheeks and watched with hand on hilt. It 
was for the Emperor Julius that the military display 
on the Field of Ares had been made that day, and 
the Emperor Julius had said many sweet and gracious 
things about it : what he had thought was another 
matter, which concerned no one. 

After the King, there had passed the Crown 
Prince, with his cousin, the young son of the great 
Julius, receiving the conventional cheers which are 
given to those who are powerful but not beloved. 
Then had followed a squadron of White Cuirassiers, 
a dazzling regiment; some companies of the Rhsetian 
Mountaineers, a popular corps, with the feathers of 
the wild turkey in their hats ; some squadrons of 
light cavalry on weedy and weary horses, not well- 
groomed, and still less well-fed, the small and 
slender horses of the treeless plains of the south- 
east ; and some field-batteries not exceedingly smart 
in appearance nor exact in movement, of which 
the gun-carriages lumbered along, too heavy for 
their weakly teams, whilst the metal of cannon and 
of caisson was dusty and dull. After these tramped 
some companies of infantry, very young soldiers, 
thin, and small of stature, who wore ill-fitting uni- 
forms and were footsore and fatigued. No one 
cheered these. 


I 


HELIANTHUS 


5 


Suddenly there was a movement of reviving 
interest; the ladies who had risen to leave the 
balconies returned, and reseated themselves ; the 
people pushed each other forward, and scrambled 
to get out of the centre of the roadway, the guards 
thrusting back some scores roughly and needlessly. 
A half-squadron of Hussars came in sight, trotting 
briskly with drawn swords; behind them was an 
open carriage with four horses and postillions in the 
royal liveries, azure and silver. In the carriage was 
a young man in uniform, who carried his hussar’s 
shako on his knee, and nodded familiarly with a 
tired smile to the multitudes who cheered him. He 
did not look up to the balconies and windows of the 
palaces, although their occupants cast roses and lilies 
down as he passed ; he looked at the populace crowd- 
ing the roadway. 

He came and went in a cloud of sun-gilt dust, a 
vehement and ardent roar of voices greeting him on 
his way ; ladies above waved their handkerchiefs and 
kissed the flowers they threw ; the people below 
pushed and hurt each other in their efforts to get 
nearer to him ; his carriage swept by in a storm of 
applause and loud cries of ‘ Elim ! Elim ! Elim ! 
Long live Prince Elim ! ’ 

c There goes one who is at heart with us,’ said a 
journalist of the city to a friend as they stood to- 
gether in the crowd. 

c No,’ said the friend, who was wiser. ‘ He is 
with no one. He sees too clearly to find satisfaction 
in modern politics. We cannot content him any 
more than his own people do.’ 

The young prince passing at that moment recog- 
nised the two speakers as writers on the Republican 


6 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


Press of Helios, and made them a friendly gesture 
of his hand. 

His father’s police-spies, mingling with the throng 
as mere citizens or operatives, saw the gesture and 
noted it. 

His carriage passed on, the horses fretting and 
fuming at the pressure of the populace against their 
flanks. 

The people cried again : c Elim ! Elim ! Elim ! 
Long life to Elim ! ’ 

He bowed to the crowds with a smile which was 
neither glad nor gay. He was thinking : c They 
would come out in the same numbers to see the pro- 
cession of a travelling menagerie ; and if there were 
a blue lion or a green tiger to be seen they would 
cheer as warmly.’ 

He regretted that the crowds did come out, did 
cheer. It dwarfed human nature in his eyes ; it 
made him ashamed of his own countrymen. So, if 
the statue of a god could think, would it feel towards 
its worshippers, whether it were named Zeus, Buddha, 
Christ, or Jehovah. 

To the mind of a thinker there is no spectacle 
more painful, more provocative of wonder and of 
sadness, than the sight of the multitudes of a capital 
city standing for hours in sun, or rain, or snow, 
elbowing each other for a foremost place, breaking 
down tree-tops, stone copings, marble pedestals, 
bruising the bosoms of women and crushing the limbs 
of children, in order to see a royal procession pass by 
along familiar roadways. And this young prince was 
a thinker, a philosophic thinker, although having 
been born in the purple he had no right to be so. 
For the first duty of a prince is never to allow his 


I 


HELIANTHUS 


7 


mind to stray outside the ring-fence of received and 
conventional opinion ; he must never question the 
superiority of his own order any more than the 
serving-priest of Christian churches must question 
the divinity of the Eucharist. If you do not believe 
in yourself, who will believe in you ? 

The young prince now passing between the two 
lines of cheering people did not believe in himself, 
nor in his order, nor in his family, nor in any supe- 
riority of his or theirs. The enthusiasm of the 
crowds left him cold, for he rightly regarded such 
enthusiasm as too similar to the blind worship of 
trees and stones and carven woods by barbaric races, 
to be worth anything in the estimation of a reasonable 
being. It was fetish-worship : nothing else. That 
he himself was the fetish at the moment could not 
make the superstition any more worthy in his sight. 

Three thousand years earlier the people of Egypt 
had thus clamoured in praise of their Pharaohs: 
where was the progress of the human race ? Why- 
must humanity always have a fetish of some sort? 
Why ? It would perplex the wisest philosopher to 
say. Bisons and buffaloes in a natural state of exist- 
ence elect a monarch, we are told ; but they are said 
to take the strongest, greatest, finest of the herd. 
Men do not do this; they cannot do it; for a civilised 
man, being a complicated creature, is apt to lack in 
one thing in proportion to what he possesses in 
another. If the successful fighter be selected by 
them, as by the bison or buffalo, they get a Welling- 
ton who becomes a failure in politics ; or if they 
take the man of genius, they get a Lamartine or a 
Disraeli ; or even if they obtain a Napoleon, power 
goes to their Napoleon's head and all is red ruin. 


8 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


So, in fear of the unusual, they cling to the ordi- 
nary conventional hereditary person, and endow him 
with imaginary qualities, and hedge him about with 
symbols, and functions, and office-holders, and make- 
belief of all kinds. The bison and buffalo would 
not be satisfied with this ; but man is, or at least the 
majority of men are. 

‘ Is that one of the King's sons ? ' asked a foreigner 
speaking ill the language of the country. 

The artisan to whom he spoke understood the 
question, despite the ugly accent of the stranger. 

‘ Who are you, that you do not know Elim ? ’ he 
replied. 

‘ Elim ? ' repeated the foreigner, not compre- 
hending. 

‘ Prince Elim,' repeated the man. c Our Elim.' 

< The Duke of Othyris,' added another working- 
man. 

‘Oh, to be sure,' said the stranger, c the Heir 
Presumptive, is he not? ' 

‘ The most popular person in the country,' said an 
idler, who had a carnation between his teeth. 

‘ He seems very popular indeed,' said the foreigner, 
with interrogation in his tone. 

‘ All the family are,' said the idler with the carna- 
tion drily ; then, catching from under the white cap 
of one who was dressed like a cook from a restaurant 
a sharp glance, which seemed to him that of a spy in 
disguise, he raised his hat and said reverently, ‘ Christ 
have them all in His keeping.' 

The foreigner was touched. f And they say these 
people are malcontents and revolutionaries ! ' he 
murmured to a companion, as he stooped to pick 
up a rose which had been thrown from a window 


i HELIANTHUS 9 

to the carriage of the Duke of Othyris, and had 
missed its goal. 

‘The malcontents have muzzles on/ said his friend. 
c Sixteen hundred men were clapped in prison before 
the Emperor’s arrival, and some thousands are con- 
fined to their own houses.’ 

c But it is a constitutional country ! ’ protested 
the traveller from overseas. 

c Oh, yes,’ answered the other, ‘on paper and in 
theory ! ’ 

‘ Circulate, circulate, circulate ! ’ said the gen- 
darmes, imitating their brethren of the larger capitals 
of Europe, and enforcing their order with thrusts 
from their elbows, or from the pommels of their 
sabres, into the ribs or the chests of the people. 

The glow from the western sky died down, the 
shadows lengthened and crept upward to the zinc 
roofs; the balconies were emptied, the electric light 
flashed suddenly down the whole street, and made 
the faces of the multitude look hard, jaded, pallid, 
dejected ; a dull silence fell on the populace, a silence 
in which the rumbling of the tram-cars, readmitted 
to movement after half-a-day’s exclusion, sounded like 
a caricature of the artillery which had passed down 
there twenty minutes before. The tired children 
cried, the hustled women sighed, the men who had 
been knocked about by fists and sabres went sullenly 
homeward, the wounded were carried into hospital ; 
the festivities were over. 

From the open windows of the palaces and hotels 
arose a steam and scent of good things to eat and 
good wines to drink, and spread itself through all the 
length of the street, mingling with, and overpowering, 
the odours of flowers, and powder, and hot human 


IO 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


and equine flesh. It made many of the poorer sight- 
seers in the crowd feel hungry, more hungry than 
ever ; and it made the little tired children cry louder 
to go home. 

£ The Romans gave bread as well as the Circus/ 
thought Elim, Duke ofOthyris, as his carriage turned 
in at his palace gates. c We are more economical. 
We only give the Circus, and even that we run for 
our own use/ 

The sound of cheering in the distance rolled down 
the soft air and sounded like repeated firing. 

What were they cheering now? Who ? Why? 
At that instant the crowd gathered before his own 
residence in the Square of the Dioscuri was cheering 
himself; but that made the ovation seem no wiser 
to him. 

What was that clamour worth ? 

Ten minutes earlier they had cheered his father 
and his imperial cousin. They had cheered equally 
the great artillery guns, and the sweating battery 
horses, although they knew well enough that if they 
themselves offended authority, the guns would belch 
red death on to them, and the horses be driven, under 
the slashing whip-cord, over their fallen bodies. 

£ fools ! Oh fools ! ’ he said to himself, as he 
who pities humanity is always driven in sorrow, or in 
anger, or in both, to say it. Panem et Circenses ! 
It is always the old story. Caesar may use up their 
bodies on his battlefields, and grind their souls to dust 
under his tyrannies, if he give them the arena — even 
without the bread. So long as he pleases their fancies, 
or dazzles their eyes, they will cheer him ; and they 
are pleased by so little, and dazzled by such tawdry 
tinsel ! W^hy did the people flock to see this very 


I 


HELIANTHUS 


1 1 


paltry pageant? Why did not the men go about 
their work or their business, and the women shut 
their windows ? No one could force them to turn 
out in their thousands, and waste a whole day ; and 
if they were not there to line the streets, and be 
hustled by the police, Caesar might arrive at a juster 
view of his own actual values and proportions. 
There is much they cannot do ; but some things 
they might do ; and to stay indoors on a day like 
this is one of them. 

The traveller from a distant continent, which is 
called a new country, probably because, it was old 
when Atlantis was submerged, went to dine at a 
restaurant which was modelled on the eating-places 
of that great Guthonic empire ruled by the Emperor 
Julius ; the cooks were Guthonic, the waiters were 
Guthonic, even the wines, which were Helianthine, 
were labelled by Guthonic names. The annexing of 
a nation usually begins with its bills of fare. 

The stranger from overseas was curious, and 
questioned the attendant who brought him his coffee 
and cognac. 

c What was it/ he asked, c that happened on the 
Field of Ares to-day, and made the public give such 
an enthusiastic reception to the King’s second son ? ’ 

£ There was an unfortunate incident during the 
march past, sir/ replied the man, seeing that the 
amount of money left for him on the salver was 
generous. c I do not know details. Some country 
folks got across the line of the defile ; the Duke 
stopped his squadrons and occupied himself with 
the safety of the people and their beasts ; the cavalry 
division was in consequence some minutes late ; it 
made a break in the march past ; it is said His 


12 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


Majesty was displeased at the breach of discipline/ 

c Perhaps he is jealous of his son's greater popu- 
larity ? ' 

c The King is very popular, sir/ said the waiter 
with discretion. 

c Is that so ? ’ said the visitor, incredulous. c The 
King is a very strict disciplinarian, they say ? ' 

c He is considered so : yes, sir.' 

c But would he have had his son see his subjects 
trampled to death before his eyes without an effort 
to save them ? ’ 

c I believe, sir, His Majesty does not think any- 
thing of so much importance as military exactitude ; 
and the persons who would have been run over 
were very low people — cowherds or swineherds, I 
believe.' 

c I understand why the nation prefers his son to 
himself,' said the foreigner with a smile. 

c Oh, sir, I never said that the Duke was pre- 
ferred ! ' 

‘ But he is so, my friend. What a difference 
there was in the cheering ! ' 

The attendant took his fee off the salver and was 
discreetly silent. 

c I guess he is a fine fellow, that Duke,' said the 
traveller, as he rose, took his cane and overcoat, and 
went out on to the broad white marble quay where 
the tamarisks and the magnolias showed the blue 
water between their trunks ; that blue water which 
has been the Mare Magnum of two thousand years 
of history. 

The waiter saw him go out with relief ; this kind 
of conversation is dangerous in Helianthus, which is 
a free country. 


I 


HELIANTHUS 


1 3 


The traveller might say what he chose, thought the 
man ; it was a serious thing to interrupt and delay a 
march past, merely because some common folks might 
have been injured. It was quite natural that King 
John should be very angry, and report said that 
King John when angry was as unpleasant to encounter 
as the wild boar which was the emblem of his royal 
house. 

The waiter, having imbibed bourgeois and con- 
ventional opinion as he imbibed heel-taps, admired 
this characteristic. It seemed to him truly imperial. 

For in this world there would be no tyrants if 
there were no toadies. 


CHAPTER II 

The people’s favourite, on reaching his own resi- 
dence, changed his uniform for plain clothes, drank 
some soda water, and took his way, as the Ave 
Maria rang over the city from a thousand churches, 
chapels and bell-towers, to the palace in which 
his royal father dwelt, which was known as the 
Soleia. 

The Soleia was a group of castles, halls, and 
temples, which were built round the great central 
edifice of which the dome glistened with gilded 
oriental tiles, and could be seen many miles off 
from either the mountains or the sea. It was a 
wondrous unison of many styles and ages, beginning 
with the Byzantine ; palace built on palace as beavers’ 
dwellings cluster on each other. In one of these 
resided the Crown Prince and Pfincess of Helianthus. 
It was thither that Othyris was bent. 

c Who knows,’ he thought, c what they may not 
have told her, and what fears are not agitating her 
good, kind, buckram-bound heart ? ’ 

He took a short path across the gardens of the 
Soleia to the portion of it occupied by his sister-in- 
law and his brother Theodoric, the heir to the throne. 

The Crown Prince was the only scion of a first 
alliance contracted in early youth with a princess of a 
14 


CHAP. II 


HELIANTHUS 


1 S 


small northern State now mediatised and merged in 
a great Power. . His mother had died in the third 
year of her marriage, having reproduced in her son ex- 
actly her own character, grafted on to that of John of 
Gunderode, whose shrewd talents, however, were not 
inherited ; for the Crown Prince was what would have 
been called in an ordinary mortal, stupid. He had 
the hopelessly unillumined and incorrigible dulness 
which comes from a naturally narrow brain, budded on 
the platitudes of conventional education and manured 
by the heating phosphates of flattery. He had an 
implicit belief in his knowledge and judgment, and 
was completely satisfied as to his indispensable utility 
to his nation. In appearance he was a tall, well-built, 
spare, and very muscular man, red of hair and ruddy of 
skin, rigid and stiff in movement ; his forehead was 
low, his jaw was prominent ; he had little intelligence, 
little comprehension ; he had immense belief in him- 
self, in his family, in his caste; he was religious, 
chaste, absorbed in his duties ; to his soldiers he was 
brutal, but that, he considered, was at once their 
good and his own privilege. He had wedded a 
cousin-german, a princess of a neighbouring empire; 
he had by her only two female children ; this was 
the greatest chagrin of his life. Excellent as his 
morality was, he could not suppress a sense of 
pleasurable hope whenever his wife took cold. Being 
a conscientious and religious person, he did not allow 
his mind to dwell on the contingencies which might 
arise out of a fatal illness ; but the sentiment of pleasur- 
able expectation, whenever she coughed, was there. 

The Crown Princess was by birth Guthonic, a 
cousin-german of the great Julius. She was a 
homely-looking woman of thirty-two years of age ; 


1 6 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


she had a plain face, pale blue eyes, and a high 
colour; she dressed with great simplicity on all 
except State occasions, and had a kindly and simple 
manner, which could, however, on occasion become 
cold and dignified though always bland. 

She was sitting by an open glass door, knitting 
a stocking for a poor child; she wore a gown of 
grey stuff with a white linen collar and cuffs ; she 
seemed to take pleasure in accentuating her own 
homeliness and want of grace and of colour. She had 
nothing to distinguish her from any good and homely 
housewife in the northern kingdom whence she 
came. Her brother-in-law loved her for her 
sincerity, simplicity, and goodness ; and she was 
attached to him by the law of contrast, and by her 
gratitude for his unwavering regard and loyalty to 
her. She looked troubled and anxious. The lady 
who was with her withdrew at a sign from her as her 
brother-in-law entered. 

‘Oh, my dear Elim ! she said as soon as her 
lady had withdrawn. ‘What is this I hear? You 
caused a break in the march past? Is it possible? 
I have heard no details. Pray tell me all ! ’ 

He laughed irreverently. 

‘ Yes. I am guilty of that monstrous crime. Some 
peasants, Heaven knows how, got in the way of the 
defile ; I had either to crush them or to stop my 
squadrons. Who could hesitate ? ’ 

‘ What a dreadful alternative ! ’ said the Crown 
Princess with agitation. 

‘ I see nothing very dreadful about it. It is one of 
those matters which only assume importance in the 
eyes of a military martinet. The difference in time 
was perhaps five minutes.' 


II 


HELIANTHUS 


i7 


‘ But, as I understand it, you were leading the 
Light Cavalry Division ? ’ 

‘ Yes/ 

The Princess looked anxious. c It is a great 
military offence/ 

He laughed. 

c If they cashier me, how happy I shall be ! If 
they send me to a fortress, I shall have time to 
translate Tibullus, which I have always wished to 
do/ 

c You are too flippant and reckless, Elim/ 

c I should have thought that you at least * 

he said, and paused, leaving the sentence unfinished. 

‘You thought that I should approve your action, 
as the people do ? Well, perhaps I do, in my heart. 
I think you acted naturally, mercifully, heroically. 
But being what you are, and where you were, it 
was foolhardy ; and to — to my husband and to your 
father, it appears an outrageous offence/ 

c Because I offended the Deity of Discipline ! 
Because I momentarily broke the order of the march 
past ! La belle affaire ! Why do they make me 
dress up in uniform ? Why do they not leave me 
in peace in my painting-room ? I abhor soldiering ; 
I abhor militarism ; I am a man ; I am not a 
machine. They may break me. They will not 
bend me/ 

£ I am sorry/ said the Crown Princess, and her 
sad, plain, kind countenance was clouded. 

c Sorry that I did not sit still in my saddle like 
a figure of wood, and see men and women and 
cattle stamped and crushed under the rush of the 
regiments I commanded? My dear Gertrude, that 
is very unlike you/ 


i8 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c But it was not your affair. It was not the fitting 
moment for compassion/ 

‘You say that very feebly, and I hear the voice 
of your husband speaking from your lips ! Do not 
deny your own feelings, and repeat like a parrot, my 
dear sister; such cruelty is unworthy of you.' 

‘But ’ said the Princess, and sighed, for she 

had been born and brought up in the rigidity of a 
military dominion, in the superstitions of a military 
caste. For a soldier to leave the ranks, for a com- 
manding officer to interrupt a military display, seemed 
to her a violation of laws still more sacred than the 
laws of nature or the dictates of mercy. ‘ But you 
caused a break in the march past, a pause in the 
review, a breach in continuity, unexplained, inexcus- 
able. Theo says that the Emperor smiled ! Imagine 
what your father must have felt when he saw that 
smile ! ’ 

‘Julius is our pedagogue and our War-lord, as we 
all know,’ said Othyris with irritation. ‘ But I think 
we should not smart so easily under his smiles or his 
frowns/ 

The Crown Princess sighed. She did not love 
Julius, who was her cousin both by marriage and by 
consanguinity, but she knew that Julius was an un- 
known quantity and potent factor in the future of 
Helianthus and of Europe. No flippancy or ridicule 
from Elim could alter that fact, or say what that 
future would become. 

‘ My dear Gertrude,’ said Othyris with some im- 
patience, ‘ let us leave the subject. I may have done 
what was wrong. At all events I did what my 
conscience suggested to me in a moment when there 
was no time for reflection. I imagine the herdsmen 


HELIANTHUS 


ii 


*9 


think that I did right as they go through the meadows 
this evening.’ 

The Princess sighed. 

4 Yes ; oh, yes, poor creatures ! But, my dear 
Elim, reflect ; if you commanded a division in an 
invading army you would be compelled to burn, to 
pillage, to destroy, to commit what in peace would 
be crimes, but in war become necessary and legitimate 
actions, even admirable actions, however much to be 
regretted. Well, a review is mimic war, and, like 
what it mimics, it cannot have place or pause for 
humanity.’ 

c I shall not be obliged to burn, to pillage, to 
destroy ; for I will never go out on any offensive 
campaign.’ 

c Oh, my dear ! You will have to go if you are 
ordered.’ 

4 Not at all. I can let them blow me from a gun, 
or shut me up in a fortress.’ 

4 Do not say such things, I entreat you ! ’ said his 
sister-in-law with a shudder. She knew that any 
day the pleasure of Julius or of the financiers, or 
the fear of internal troubles, might force the Helian- 
thine government into war with some neighbour, a 
war of attack of which no man living could foretell 
the issue. 

4 There are times when we must not listen to our 
hearts, nor even to our consciences,’ she added 
timidly. 4 There are times when duty requires us 
to be even cruel, to be even sinful, when to be what 
you call a machine is the sole supreme obligation 
upon us.’ 

4 A shocking creed ! It may be stretched to ex- 
cuse any crime.’ 


20 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c But to give way to every impulse may also 
lead to any crime. , 

c Not if the impulse be good, be impersonal. I 
know very well what you mean. It is the theory of 
all persons like your husband and like my father, who 
place machinery before men, who value appearances 
and are blind to facts, who think a button awry or 
a tape untied, more terrible than any catastrophe to 
the populace.' 

c A valve is a small thing ; but on its opening or 
shutting correctly depends the safety of an express- 
train or of an ocean steamer.' 

£ Let us quit metaphors. They are unsatisfactory 
in argument. Tell me plainly, Gertrude, would you 
have had me gallop on at the head of my squadrons, 
and see people — our people, for whose wellbeing 
my family is responsible — crushed to pulp under 
my troopers’ chargers a few yards off me ? ' 

His sister-in-law hesitated; over her homely, 
melancholy features a wave of colour rose and 
receded. 

‘I am reluctant to say it; but I think — yes, — 

I do think at that moment you were not your own 
master to move and to act. You were only an officer 
of the King, entrusted with a high command.' 

He turned away from the sofa on which she sat, 
and paced the room with irritation. In the voice of 
this good woman whom he loved and respected he 
hated to hear the conventional gospel which had been 
dinned into his ears ever since his long curls had 
been cut off, on the day after his sixth birthday, and 
he had been taken away from his toys and his nurses, 
his dogs and his guinea pigs, and given over into the 
charge of a civil governor and a military tutor. 


II 


HELIANTHUS 


21 


‘What a monstrous theory for a gentle and kind 
woman like you to hold ! * he cried. 

She answered with a sigh : 

‘ There are times, my dear, when a man, above all 
a prince, above all a soldier, does not belong to him- 
self at all, but entirely to his duties, entirely to the 
sovereign, to the State, to the army/ 

He laughed a brief strident laugh which it hurt 
her to hear. 

c Unhappy man, and thrice unhappy prince! 
A soldier I am not, he added : c they dress me up 
as one ; they do not make me one. How well I 
know it, Gertrude, that religion of formula, that 
doctrine of self-abasement, that negation of manhood, 
that lifting up on high of an idol more cruel than the 
serpent of brass, and more ludicrous than any black 
wooden eyeless Madonna ! It has been preached to 
me for over a score of years, and always in vain. 
My mind rejects it; my sense despises it; my con- 
science repulses it. It may take effect on others. It 
takes none on me. I am a wild goat amongst sheared 
sheep. You know it.’ 

The Crown Princess sighed. 

She was a good woman ; warm of heart, con- 
scientious in self-judgment, liberal of hand; but, 
good woman though she was, habit and caste had 
encrusted her mind, as an object is encrusted in a 
petrifying spring. 

She loved Elim despite his heresies, and she owed 
him much ; the debt of a solitary woman for sym- 
pathy which can never be forgotten. He had been 
only a boy when she had come to the Court of 
Helianthus, the victim of a conventional union, of 
a political alliance ; a shy, sad, and serious young 


22 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


woman, conscious of her want of beauty and her lack 
of charm, reserved by nature and timid from habitual 
restraint. The kindness and sweetness of the Queen, 
and the good nature and good-will of Elim, had been 
her consolation and support in what she had felt to 
be a painful exile, an almost friendless solitude. The 
beautiful Queen was dead; but her memory re- 
mained, as her life had been, a tie between her son 
and the northern Princess. 

c Do I worry you ? ’ he said with compunction. 
c You pay the penalty, my poor sister, of being the 
only person in all the family who invites confidence. 
Let us forget this little incident, and let us be glad 
that the peasants and their lambs and milch-cows got 
away with unbroken bones. How are Helene and 
Olga ? May I see them ? ’ 

‘ They are at their studies, we must not disturb 
them/ said the mother of the little girls. ‘You may 
pity me too, Elim. The pressure of the iron cylinder 
rolls over my children also, and pushes them away 
from me. But it must be so. It is necessary. It is 
inevitable. It is in interests which rank higher than 
my pleasure or my affection.’ 

c Poor victim of Juggernaut ! ’ said Othyris with 
a smile which was at once indulgent and ironical. 
c What a beautiful evening ! Let us go for ten 
minutes into the gardens and forget our harness.’ 

‘ Is there time ? ’ she said anxiously, looking at the 
little crystal ball of her watch ; her entire existence 
was regulated by clock-work. c I fear there is not 
time.’ 

c Oh, yes ; time at least for a little stroll,’ said 
Othyris as he went out on to the terrace of rose- 
granite, with balustrades of porphyry columns, 


II 


HELIANTHUS 


23 


which stretched before the windows. Beneath its 
wide hemicircle of stairs, bordered by palms and 
yuccas, stretched the flowers, the lawns, the ponds, 
and statues, and fountains, of the southern side of the 
royal gardens ; beyond these were masses of varied 
foliage of ornamental trees ; and still beyond these 
again, the shimmering silver of the sea, calm and 
heaving gently underneath the violet sky in which a 
young moon had risen. The city might have been a 
thousand miles away for any suggestion that there 
was of it, or any murmur of its restless crowds. On 
a life-sized group of Aphrodite mourning the dead 
Adonis, the clearsoft light of the early summerevening 
was shining; the statue was of the period which is 
called debased Greek art, but it was very beautiful 
despite its epoch. 

c How like you are to the Adonis, Elim ! ’ said the 
Princess as they passed the group. 

c So my dear mother used to say. So my flatterers 
still say/ 

c I never flatter you, Elim/ 

c Dear, you have the only flattery which is really 
sweet and wholesome, which is true flower-made 
honey that does not cloy : a too indulgent affection. 
Would to Heaven I were of marble like the Adonis, 
or of petrified wood like your beloved husband ! * 

They went down the steps of one of the terraces 
and walked on by an avenue of tulip-trees ; at its 
end was a small classic temple looking out on to 
the western sea, on which the after-glow of a spring- 
tide day was still roseate. 

‘ How we waste our time, how we lose our 
summers ! ’ said Othyris as he gazed across the sea, so 
warm and bright in the light of the early eve. 4 We 


24 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


have only just come in from the dust of the Field of 
Ares, and we must go and sit behind gold plate with 
the evening light shut out that electric fuses may 
burn/ 

The Princess did not contradict him. How happy 
she would have been walking with her two little girls 
along a country lane, talking with them of field flowers 
and hedge birds, and seeing the slow and pensive 
twilight of her northern home steal softly over furrow 
and hamlet and sheepfold ! 

On the silver field of the serene water of the gulf 
there was a vessel, dark in the luminous blue of the 
early night. It was a fishing-vessel, and on a wooden 
gallery in its bow a man was standing, whilst other 
boatmen rowed. In his raised hand was a long spear. 
The barque was moving swiftly, turning now to 
leeward, now to windward. 

c They are chasing a sword-fish/ said Othyris. 
c We cannot see the fish, but they can. To think that 
this chase has gone on for twenty centuries and more, 
in precisely the same manner in these same waters ! ’ 
The vessel glided out of the light into the shadow, 
and the figure of the spear-thrower was lost in the 
deeper blue of the shade; there only remained visible 
the two starboard oars dipping into and flashing with 
the phosphorescent water. 

‘They do not often succeed in taking him/ said 
Othyris. ‘ He is difficult to see even by day, kind 
nature made him so blue. But the kindness of 
nature is generally thwarted by the ingenuity of 
man, by the devilry of mankind/ 

c Poor Xiphias ! * he added : ‘ he is a soldier too 
in his way, but he fights with the weapon which 
nature gave him, and he attacks bigger creatures than 


II 


HELIANTHUS 


2 5 


himself. He is a chivalrous knight compared to the 
war-makers of our time. I wish the fishermen would 
leave him alone. Yet those men yonder are to be 
excused. They are hungry, they have children 
as hungry at home. But what do you say to our 
sister Ottoline, who goes out with them for the sheer 
pleasure of seeing the agonies of the poor gallant 
Xiphias ? She has even learnt to throw the harpoon 
herself! ’ 

c There is nothing to excuse it. For, in her choice, 
there is neither ignorance nor compulsion,’ said the 
Princess sadly, and looked at her watch by the light 
of the moon. c I fear I must go in, my dear ; there 
will be only twenty minutes left for me to put on 
my war-paint.’ 

‘ I have a mind to stay here,’ said Othyris, gazing 
wistfully at the sea. c What would happen if I failed 
to appear ? ’ 

‘ For goodness’ sake do not have such freaks of 
fancy,’ said his sister-in-law in anxiety. ‘ You would 
see the sun rise from the barred window of some 
fortress.’ 

c Because I did not show at a banquet ? What an 
idea ! ’ 

£ But the Emperor is our guest, our cousin, our 
ally ! ’ 

c Our suzerain ,’ said Othyris bitterly. 

c Do not say such things, dear Elim,’ murmured 
his sister-in-law. c Here statues have ears, and trees 
have tongues. Come, dear; do come, to please me.’ 

Othyris looked with regret to the beauty of 
the early night, to the phosphorescent sea, the violet 
sky, the dark outline of the fishing-barque, the 
marble balustrades and statues pale and cool in the 


26 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


shadow, then reluctantly accompanied her back 
towards the palace by the avenue of tulip-trees. 

‘ If I were only the man with the lance on the 
boat ! * he said, ‘ but without the penal obligation of 
slaying the sword-fish ! * 

c And do you not think the man with the lance 
says or thinks, “ If I were only that great Prince 
yonder amongst his roses ” ? * 

‘Perhaps he does, poor ignorant! He does not 
know that the Prince has not a moment to enjoy the 
scent of the roses ! * 

‘ But, Elim/ said his sister-in-law with that timidity 
which always characterised her utterance of any 
opinion of her own, ‘ do you not think that, as you 
fill a position which you cannot change, and as you 
may possibly be called to fill one still more trying 
and arduous, it would be wiser, merely from a 
common-sense point of view, to cease to struggle 
against what you cannot possibly alter? — neither 
you nor any one who lives/ 

He did not reply. His thoughts went farther 
than he chose to say even to this good and loyal 
woman. 

‘Acquiescence is the hardest of all duties to any 
one of your temperament/ she added. ‘ But if a 
duty be not hard what merit is there in accepting its 
yoke?’ 

‘ I do not see either duty or merit in this in- 
stance ! ’ 

‘ My dear Elim ! . . / 

‘ I do not/ 

‘ Then where ? * 

‘ Where shall I look for them ? * Is that what 
you would say? What a pity I cannot find them as 


II 


HELIANTHUS 


27 


Theo does in regulation belts and regimental but- 
tons ! * 

£ Theo is conscientious/ said Theo’s wife with 
reproach. 

‘ All disagreeable people are ! * said Othyris with 
a little laugh. 

c I wish you would not laugh at Theo/ said Theo’s 
wife uneasily, with a little red spot in each thin cheek. 

‘ II sy frete ! ’ said Othyris with careless way- 
wardness. 

£ Oh, my dear Elim, hush ! * said Theo’s wife in 
distress. c We must really go indoors/ she said 
nervously. ‘ It is a pity, yes ; like you I should 
willingly spend the evening here. But one has no 
right to expect to be idle.’ 

‘ We are worse than idle ; we are actively mis- 
chievous. Can there be a greater waste of time or a 
more unpleasant form of ennui than a dinner of 
sixteen courses for persons already over-fed ? 9 

She did not reply, but hurried back towards the 
terrace ; such remarks almost seemed to her to suggest 
softening of the brain; to her a great dinner was a 
function, like a church ceremony, or the opening of 
a new session, or a royal baptism. 

Othyris left the Soleia, as he had come there, by 
a private gate which opened on a side street ; he was 
unattended, and hoped to reach his own palace un- 
recognised. But when he had passed through the 
two other small streets lying between the Soleia and 
his own residence he was seen by some of the people 
standing about the principal road leading to the 
Square of the Dioscuri, and a cheer was raised ; his 
name was spoken; others joined in the cheering; soon 
the applause grew deafening; men, women, and 


28 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


children ran thither from all parts, and the rough 
rejoicings rose tumultuous like the cawing from a 
rookery. 

He was provoked with himself for his forgetful- 
ness of the probability of such a demonstration. 
There was nothing which he more greatly disliked, 
and nothing which more incensed the King and his 
elder brother. It was now impossible to avoid the 
people ; they had recognised him. He saluted the 
populace courteously, but signed to them to disperse. 
In the noise from their lungs no speech of his could 
be heard. He was vexed with himself for his own 
heedlessness in coming on foot from the gardens to 
his own house. He knew how intensely these evi- 
dences of his own popularity offended and irritated 
his father and his brothers ; that advantage was taken 
of them by those jealous of him ; that exaggeration 
was used by the socialistic and subversive journals 
concerning them. 

He had acted on an impulse of humanity that day 
on the Field of Ares, and he would have done the 
same thing if he had acted on reflection ; but he 
knew that in the eyes of his family his action could 
only seem like a studied attitude to please the people, 
a politic bid for public favour. All his actions took 
that complexion in their sight. 

The numbers in the Square increased with every 
second ; the municipal police, alarmed at a demon- 
stration which they might have, but had not, foreseen, 
endeavoured to push their way towards him ; he 
himself was annoyed, for if anything would have 
made him an enemy to the populace, it would have 
been their methods of showing their enthusiasm for 
himself. 


II 


HELIANTHUS 


29 


He motioned aside the guards when they at last 
succeeded in reaching him ; communal guards with 
their revolvers in their hands ready to use them and 
happy to do so. 

c Put up your arms/ he said sharply. c There 
is no occasion for them/ 

The multitude heard and cheered more lustily, 
their voices pealing over the wide space, the shrill 
outcries of the women sounding like the sound of 
fifes, the chest notes of the stronger men like the roll 
of drums. 

Fact had already become legend, and the versions 
of his recent action on the Field of Ares were rapidly 
swelling into a Heraklean fable. 

c Elim ! Elim ! Long life and Heaven’s blessing 
to Elim, the friend of the people ! * they cried in 
their rhythmical roar. 

By signs to the crowd, and with a smile, he made 
a path for himself towards his residence, the guards 
closing in behind him, forbidden by him to do more. 
Sundry of his gentlemen and some of the officers of 
his division came out to meet him, elbowing their 
way to release him. 

The electric light was now lit and illumined the 
palms, the statues, the parterres of flowers, the great 
fountains, the agitated, many-coloured, dense throng 
of the people. 

c Speak to us ! speak to us ! * they shouted. ‘ Speak 
to us, Elim ! ’ 

He turned round before his own gates, and again 
raised his hat to them. 

‘ Not now, my friends/ he said. ‘ Thanks for 
your good-will ; and good-night to you.’ 

The people murmured loudly and many swore 


30 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. II 


in their wrath ; but the great bronze gates closed 
behind him, and they could only shout, and wave 
their caps, and trample on one another in the cold, 
clear light shining on the steel tubes of the guards' 
revolvers. One by one, little by little, they tired of 
waiting, and dropped away into the streets leading 
from the Square; a few hundred remained to see their 
idol pass in his carriage to the Soleia, to the banquet 
given there for the Emperor of the Guthones. 


CHAPTER III 


Meanwhile Elim’s father, John, King of Helian- 
thus, sat in his study and thought over the matter 
with extreme offence and irritation. He was a short, 
stout, well-made man of nearly sixty years of age ; he 
had a plain face, a dark skin, bristling iron-grey hair, 
and a high, narrow forehead with thick, straight eye- 
brows. Under those straight, dark brows his eyes 
looked out like two ever-vigilant vedettes ; they 
were small grey eyes, pale in colour, half-hidden by 
heavy lids; the iris was touched by the inflamed 
thread-like veins of the cornea, but they were eyes 
which left in the minds of those at whom they looked 
sharply an indescribable impression of discomfort ; 
they made the most simple and sincere of persons 
feel embarrassed with an uneasy sense of being 
detected and read through unpleasantly. For the 
rest he was without distinction of any kind ; he 
looked a gentleman, but of the wealthy bourgeois 
type ; there was nothing of the patrician in him 
except his fine hands and slender wrists ; he was 
inclined to corpulence, and only overcame that royal 
defect by active habits and his devotion to the 
exercise of sport ; he smoked almost constantly, 
indoors and out, for he knew the value of tobacco 
to save speech. He was a person of few words ; 


3 2 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


words compromise oneself, silence embarrasses others 
— he never compromised himself, but he frequently 
embarrassed others. 

He ate largely, as most rulers of men do ; and he 
drank with great moderation, at such times, at least, 
as he was not in wrath ; then he drank brandy 
copiously. After his mid-day meal he slept for 
an hour ; then he transacted business and con- 
versed with the Ministers of the moment; then 
he went out riding or driving, usually driving him- 
self, with fine young thorough-bred horses, whose 
nerves, under their shining over-groomed skin, 
trembled when they saw him approach and take up 
the ribbons. 

He was an incongruous figure in the classic 
palaces, the grand, silent, romantic gardens, the 
majestic galleries, the tapestried corridors of his 
many residences in Helianthus ; as incongruous as a 
British sentry on duty on a palm terrace of Benares. 
But he did not see it ; or, rather, the contrast, so far 
as he perceived it, seemed to him entirely to his 
own advantage. 

Outside his apartments, avenues of crategus and 
paulownia, masses of roses and datura, fountains 
shining through the glorious gloom of secular cedars, 
wide lawns sloping down from sculptured marble 
staircases, deep pools sleeping under water-lilies, the 
golden and silver armour of fish glancing under the 
arum and nenuphar leaves where sun-rays touched the 
water, statues which had been there in the same places 
since first called into being by classic sculptors, — all 
offered their enchantment to his sight. But he never 
looked at them, nor walked amidst them ; the 
electric bells, the telephone tubes, the innumerable 


Ill 


HELIANTHUS 


33 


scientific devices and appliances disfiguring the 
frescoed wall at the back of his writing-table, were 
far more interesting in his sight. 

John of Gunderode was not a man of great 
abilities; but he was a great egotist, which is a form 
of talent, and he was exceedingly shrewd in all 
questions which regarded his own advantage. As 
his own advantage was often identical with that of 
his kingdom, he was considered a patriotic monarch ; 
but when his own advantage clashed with that of his 
kingdom, the latter went to the wall, as in loyalty a 
kingdom is bound to do. He had a sincere belief 
in his own utility to the country : he was perfectly 
honest in his conviction that his grip held it 
together, that he was the keystone of its arch, the 
mortar of its bastions. He took himself very 
seriously. He believed in himself, which is the 
surest mode of making others believe in you. Born 
in a private station, he would have made an admi- 
rable artillery or infantry officer, or, perhaps, a still 
better merchant or stockbroker ; that he impressed 
many persons as being a potential Caesar was due 
entirely to his own belief in his Caesarism. Called 
to be the constitutional sovereign of a liberty-loving 
and republican nation, he had made himself an auto- 
crat and the nation a servant. The alteration had 
been gradual, and not violent, for he was a man who 
could control his desires in his own interests. This 
power of self-restraint was the conspicuous quality 
of his race. 

Nothing, now, would have given him greater 
pleasure than to have had his son put under arrest 
immediately on his return from the Field of Ares ; 
nothing would have been more just or correct as he 


34 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


viewed justice and correction. But he hesitated to 
carry out his views : he knew that his son was 
popular, and that the populace of Helios might rise 
in his defence. 

So far as the King had nerves to suffer from, he 
was nervous during any visit of the War-lord of the 
Guthones. He was constantly apprehensive of some- 
thing which might happen to disgrace his army or 
his police in his guest’s sight. This action of his 
second son was such a heinous breach of military 
etiquette as it would have been impossible ever to have 
seen on the sandy plains where the hosts of Julius 
manoeuvred. It was natural that all the sullen, savage 
rage of which his reserved temper was capable, 
growled within him like a muzzled mastiff's. If he 
had followed his impulses, and his sense of duty, 
Elim would have had short shrift. 

To him the action of Othyris was the most 
contemptible melodrama, as well as the most intol- 
erable breach of discipline. That break of a few 
minutes in the march past, of which Elim thought so 
lightly, was to him a direct offence against military 
etiquette and law. No punishment would have 
seemed to him too severe for it, viewed from a 
military standpoint. But that the abominable act 
had pleased the people he was aware ; the rapturous 
cheering with which his son had been greeted in the 
streets had told him that ; and he doubted whether 
public opinion, either in the country or outside it, 
would go with him in heavy chastisement of an in- 
fraction of discipline which had as its excuse the senti- 
mental plea of humanity. 

The King was a strong man and in nothing 
stronger than in his capability of taking into account 


HELIANTHUS 


hi 


35 


the weight in public opinion of feelings which he 
himself despised as absurd and hysterical vapours. 

With him, in this distressing hour, were the 
Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the War Min- 
ister, and the Prefect of the Palace. 

The theories and the temper of the first of 
these officials, General Lipsahl, made him abhor 
such an action as that of Othyris on the Field of 
Ares. It was in his sight a treason to the flag, to 
the King, to the dignity of the military calling. 
Who could excuse it? No one who had any sense 
of duty. At the same time, although the mind of 
Lipsahl was like an armoured waggon, closed by 
iron shutters to projectiles as to daylight, yet Kanta- 
kuzene, the Prime Minister, had seen him for ten 
minutes, secretly, and had said to him : 

c For God’s sake, remember this thing is popular; 
restrain the King from public blame of it.’ 

This was the evil which ensued from Helianthus 
being nominally at least a constitutional State ; 
monarch and ministers had still sometimes to consider 
popular feeling. 

The ideal of Lipsahl was the adjacent little 
kingdom of Barusia, where the guards arrested a 
poodle for wearing national, i.e. revolutionary, 
colours ; or the empire of the Septentriones, where 
one soldier’s life was esteemed worth the lives of 
one hundred civilians. But he had the misfortune 
to be in command of the army in a country in 
which certain anti-military fictions were still neces- 
sarily maintained. They were merely fictions ; yet 
he, like his royal master, was obliged to pretend 
to consider them realities, and, as such, to be in- 
fluenced by them ! He considered that the Duke 


36 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


of Othyris deserved punishment without bias or 
mercy, but he knew that such punishment would 
arouse dangerous resentment in the city and in 
many parts of the country. He felt also that the 
national mind was so feeble and so prejudiced that 
if an act were humane it was considered laudable. 
No government (as no war) could be conducted 
on humane principles; but the public everywhere, 
though in war it realises this great truth, in peace 
ignores it, even considers it horrible. 

Ionides Aracoeli, the War Minister, a civilian who 
knew as much of war as a child of therapeutics, and 
whose mind always trotted humbly after the superior 
minds of his sovereign and of Lipsahl, and indeed 
only existed to be their echo in the Chamber and 
their instrument at the War Office, was perfectly 
ready to do or to say whatever he might be told to 
do or say. But in his innermost soul he hoped 
that no severity would be used. For the civilian 
mind, however indoctrinated by a warlike Press, 
remains feminine, or at least appears feminine to the 
military mind, which considers itself alone truly 
masculine ; and the feminine mind is always captivated 
by the sensational charm of such an altruistic action 
as this folly on the Field of Ares. 

There only remained the Prefect of the Palace, 
Baron Zelia, the King’s favourite and confidant, if 
the monarch could be supposed to admit those 
crutches of the feeble, either favourites or confidants, 
into his robust and all-sufficing existence. Baron 
Zelia ventured to say openly in a few well-chosen 
and delicate words that the act on the Field of Ares 
had pleased the people of Helios; that no doubt it 
merited censure in many ways, but that the people 


Ill 


HELIANTHUS 


37 


approved of it, and the approval of the people should 
not be completely disregarded. 

Why, the King wondered, was what was idiotic 
always popular ? Who ever heard of a sound and 
sensible action being so ? What was hysterical, high- 
flown, hyperbolic, always captivated the public fancy. 
Why was his second son popular ? Because he was a 
visionary and a fool. Zelia affirmed that the absurd 
and offensive action of his second son had been warmly 
admired and applauded by the people ; there was no 
doubt about that ; and though the people were no 
more in his own sight than a herd of swine, he knew 
that if the swine took to running amuck they might 
carry with them him and his over the precipice. The 
precipice was always there, dark, deep, unpleasant, 
an ever-yawning tomb ; dynasties older, safer, 
stronger than his, had been hurled into such a pit 
before then. 

In the King’s character there was one supremely 
useful trait : it was the power he possessed of 
keeping back his anger and his appetites in subjection 
to his interests. Whoever possesses that power is 
sure, whether in private or in public life, of a con- 
siderable measure of individual success. The King 
had not a great character or great intelligence, but 
what he had of either he kept well in hand ; even 
his instincts of brutality and authority he could 
subordinate to the demands of his interests. 

The Emperor of the Guthones, his sister’s 
son, was the one person for whom the King 
entertained a sincere envy and admiration. Julius 
had a manner of telling his army that he expected 
it to massacre its fellow-countrymen, whenever 
desired, which rivalled the finest times of mediaeval 


3 8 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


despotism. He had a felicitous familiarity in his 
relations with the Deity, coupled with a reverential 
admiration of himself and of his own acts, his own 
speeches, his own talents and policies, which John of 
Gunderode admired respectfully, though the stolid 
common-sense of his own temper prevented him from 
equalling them. To rise to those supreme heights 
of self-adoration it is needful to have more than one 
grain de folie in one’s moral and mental composition, 
and the King had no grains de folie in his composi- 
tion ; he was entirely practical and sensible. 

Soldiers, police, and the Deity were the three forces 
on which both sovereigns relied to keep themselves 
in power, and their peoples quiet; but John of Gun- 
derode felt that his nephew was the finer artist of 
the two in his ability to take so very seriously the last 
of the trio. 

King J°hn certainly believed in a Providence in 
that vague manner in which most men of the world 
believe in that which they do not take the trouble to 
think about, but which is considered a generally 
received and wholly respectable tradition, of con- 
siderable utility at certain moments. But to the 
Emperor of the Guthones his God was a continual 
presence, like that, in a banking or mercantile house of 
business, of the venerable senior partner who leaves 
every initiative to the junior partner, but is always to 
be relied on for a signature at the necessary moment, 
and is eminently precious as a quotable authority. 

The two views were as dissimilar as are those of 
a suspicious man and of a confident child. Yet at 
the back of each of their minds there was one 
common thought. I he Deity to each of them was 
of great use in impressing the masses and upholding 


Ill 


HELIANTHUS 


39 


the crown ; and if either of them should go to war, 
the Divine name would be held in front of them like 
a shield, and make all carnage and looting, and 
burning and torturing, which the wars might involve, 
seem necessary, justifiable, and even benevolent 
measures, to which no one could be opposed except 
c cranks.’ 

The family of Julius, the Lillienstauffen, had 
been in their origin, like the Gunderode, lords of 
a small feudal fief, high set on stony hills above 
morass and plain, whence they had descended to 
kidnap travellers and pilgrims, and wreck convoys 
and mule-trains. Like the Gunderode, they had 
progressed from one rank to another, and turned all 
their neighbours’ misfortunes to their own account, 
until they had become first margraves, then princes, 
then kings, then emperors, distancing the Gunde- 
rode, and finally ruling over an immense and powerful 
conglomeration of States which regarded the head 
of the House as their suzerain, or, as Julius preferred 
to phrase it, c Supreme Envoy of God.’ 

C I and God,’ said Julius; King John was con- 
tented only to say c I.’ In his shrewd and practical 
mind he had an impression that the addition weakened 
the royal or imperial claim to infallibility. In his 
own discourses he always kept the Deity far away in 
the background, as a vague and indefinite potentiality 
completely eclipsed by its vice-regents, the monarchs. 
But he nevertheless admired the manner in which 
Julius flourished his God in the face of Christian 
and Paynim, whilst instructing his soldiers that their 
most sacred duty would be to swill the conduits of 
the capital with the national blood, if he, Julius, 
should ever order them so to do. 


4 o 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


Like all truly great men Julius did not allow his 
partnership with Providence to prevent his devoting 
the most minute attention to details, such as the 
length of his grenadiers’ hair, the device on his 
fusiliers’ buttons, the colour of a stripe, the quality 
of a stuff, or the changes in the cut of a tunic. He 
would get up before dark to sketch a design for 
a sleeve-cuff ; and would consign a guardsman to 
arrest who had a speck on his pipe-clay. Thus it 
was with a gaze terrible as Medusa’s, and searching 
as a microscopic lens, that he had that day sat on his 
war-horse and inspected his uncle’s forces. 

His tongue was glib in compliment and con- 
gratulation, but his hawk’s eyes were merciless in the 
detection of defects in that military machine which 
in his estimation only existed to be at once the play- 
thing and the thunderbolt of monarchs. 

King John knew that his own machine was far 
from faultless, despite the pains with which he had 
consecrated his life to its dressage and dominance. 
1 he people of Helianthus were not a race to give 
full satisfaction to a martinet; they could not be 
made perfectly rigid, passive, accurate puppets of 
iron and clockwork. Their blood was hot, their 
tempers were unsuited to compulsion; their limbs 
were graceful often, but seldom strong ; their natural 
movements were careless, easy, indolent ; they drank 
when they were thirsty, unbuttoned their jackets 
when they were hot, fell out of line when anything 
tempted them on the march ; the best amongst them 
never looked c smart in the martinet’s sense of the 
word. 

c It is not an army; it is a rabble in uniform,’ 
thought Julius, as he sat on his charger beside the 


Ill 


HELIANTHUS 


4i 


flagstaff. c If I threw a few thousand of my ironsides 
against it, they would double it up like a pancake ! ’ 

He had seen it often, and he had always found it 
the same, and John of Gunderode guessed the un- 
spoken thought. 

The King had done his best : he had spared no 
brutality, he had shown no clemency, he had punished 
with unexampled severity every lightest breach of 
discipline ; he had cashiered generals for the smallest 
indulgence and the most trivial insubordination ; he 
had confirmed the death-sentences of courts-martial, 
and had spurned the wretched mothers and wives 
who knelt at his feet to implore mercy for the 
condemned ; he had never yielded for an instant to 
any weakness, and had never spared either himself 
or others in his effort to crush all manhood out of 
three hundred thousand men. Most of his rank 
and file were peasants, youngsters who had been 
poorly fed from their cradles ; they were slight of 
muscle, of build, of stamina ; they bore ill the 
weight of their accoutrements, the constraint of 
their uniforms, the confinement of their barracks ; 
they were children of the valleys and the mountains, 
used to run with bare feet through the thyme and 
the wild sage, and pipe on their cut reeds, as their 
forefathers had done in the days when Pan was god 
of the woodland world. As modern eyes view 
soldiers, these conscripts, even after three years 
under arms, matched ill with the muscular, bearded, 
Herculean human engines of war, fed on strong beer 
and fat meat, who were commanded by the Emperor 
of the Guthones. 

Julius, in speech most flattering, yet always made 
King John feel that his artillery was six months 


42 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


behind the last invention in ordnance, that his big- 
gest foot-guards were short of stature, that his smart- 
est regiments straggled a little in their march past; 
that, when his Grenadiers tramped by in line, some 
man’s tip of nose, or tip of boot, was sure to be an 
inch in advance of the rest. Some cavalry horse 
unlike his fellows in shape or size or colour or breed, 
some gap in the order of battery following battery, 
some young trooper visibly uneasy and awkward in 
his saddle, some driver letting his team buck or his 
wheels lock — some error, offence, or imperfection, 
there always was. 

The keen gaze of his visitor noted, he knew, every 
sign of such irregularity ; trifles in the sight of an 
ignorant civilian, but unpardonable offences in the 
sight of a military monarch. In such hours John of 
Gunderode suffered acutely. Therefore, that a break 
in the march past should have occurred in the pres- 
ence of Julius, was an unendurable humiliation to 
him in his own eyes. 

The Guthones were a northerly people ; they were 
a beer-filled people ; they were a people who had for 
many generations always been drilled from their 
cradles ; their land had for many centuries been cut 
up into tiny principalities, but each of these little 
pieces had been ruled with a rod of iron ; they were 
used to live with their feet in the stocks and their 
necks in steel collars. They submitted to be the 
living pegs of a perpetual game of kriegspiel without 
protest, and they scarcely grumbled when their 
masters broke their ribs to teach them to stand 
straight. These are of course the model subjects of 
a State, the ideal plebs, the true chair a canon ; but 
they do not exist everywhere. 


Ill 


HELIANTHUS 


43 


The King, who had a great deal of Guthonic 
blood in him, spent his life in the effort to make the 
Helianthines resemble the Guthones. But he might 
as well have tried to make a greyhound a bulldog. 
The fair shores of Helianthus had been desired, 
attacked, ravaged, seized, laid desolate, scores of 
times ever since the ponderous galleys of Asiatic foes 
had first been driven through the waters of the Mare 
Magnum by slaves chained to the oars. The King 
knew that they would be so desired, so attacked, 
again and again, in the centuries to come, and that by 
no one else were they so likely to be desired and 
attacked as by this young man, his well-beloved 
nephew, who kissed him on both cheeks, and, profit- 
ing by an affectionate intimacy, studied and espied 
every thin armour plate in his navy, every ill- 
buttoned tunic in his army. 

There was no security in the future. What the 
world calls peace is but a suspension of hostilities, a 
jealous watching of wild beasts. King John knew, 
as his nephew knew, that the army of Helianthus 
would not be able to stand against an invasion of the 
Guthones ; that, if unsupported, its young battalions, 
ill-fed and with no naturally martial instincts, would 
immediately, however commanded or however incited, 
give way before the brawny and beer-filled ironsides 
of Julius. It was one of those anxieties of which no 
man can speak, which put into words would seem to 
disgrace the speaker. But it was in the King’s mind 
at all times. Who could be sure that a turn in the 
wheel of fortune might not give to Julius the excuse, 
the opportunity, the pretext which he craved ? 

For the King did not believe as solidly as he 
would have wished to do in the future independence 


44 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


of Helianthus. The national unity of the Helian- 
thines was more a phrase than a fact. A running 
stream between two villages, a crest of hills between 
two communes, was enough to make each the enemy 
of the other in a blood-feud lasting for centuries. 
At the first scream of hostile shells it was probable 
that the national solidarity, which existed chiefly on 
paper and in oratory, would fall in pieces like an un- 
bound faggot. King John felt that if Julius himself 
did not live to carry out his desire, some scion of his 
would sooner or later send his ironclads into the 
Mare Magnum and his armies over the mountains of 
Rhaetia, and the classic land would become a mere 
southern portion of the Guthonic realm. True, 
socialism in an acute form mined the Guthonic empire, 
but its militarism was stronger; the vanity and strength 
of the Guthonic people would always, or at least for a 
long time to come, be unable to resist the national in- 
stinct towards war and conquest, and the geographical 
position of Helianthus offered it as the first victim. 

c Our War-lord exacts no tribute as yet. Let us 
be grateful ! ’ thought Othyris, who was chafed and 
irritated in an unspeakable degree by those annual 
visits, ostensibly of friendship and family sentiment, 
in reality of inspection and criticism. He always 
saw, in imagination, his cousin riding on a snow- 
white charger down the central street of Helios at 
the head of victorious troops. 

But that time had not then arrived. 

The Emperor Julius stood by one of the windows 
of the apartments allotted to him in the Soleia, and 
smoked, and gazed over the sea, and felt with im- 
patience that the time was not even near. 

His balconies overhung the marble terraces and 


Ill 


HELIANTHUS 


45 


stairs facing the western sea ; beneath them was the 
safe and sheltered harbour in which his yacht was 
anchored and pleasure-boats awaited his choice. 
The air was odorous with the scent of orange and 
lemon flowers, and of the great white cups of mag- 
nolias; deep-toned bells were chiming; rose-coloured 
clouds floated in the sky; the tread of a sentinel 
pacing the pavement beneath was the only discordant 
sound, but to him it had no discord — it was the 
welcome sound which accompanied his whole life, 
sleeping or waking, the assurance that his guardian 
angel in uniform was watching over him, the armed 
shape that his heavenly Father’s protection of him 
assumed. He saw no absurdity in this ; it was to 
him quite natural; he had the same belief in his 
especial favour by Heaven as Mahomet had ; he did 
not reason, he believed; in himself first, and then in 
the Deity as the creator and defender of himself. 

But Heaven, favourable to him in so much, denied 
him the Mare Magnum. 

In his few minutes of solitary reflection he looked 
over those beautiful waters, violet in some lights, 
azure in others, a malachite green or a dusky pea- 
cock-purple, farther away. Why did Providence deny 
him that sea ? What a harbour it would be for his 
battleships ! What an open portal to the conquest 
of Asia and of Africa! What an outlet to his 
legions and to the commerce of his empire ! 

For there is always commerce in the dreams and 
ambitions of the modern monarch. The Caesar of 
the twentieth century, even in his most romantic 
visions, always wears the grocer’s apron, holds the 
draper’s rule, loads the cattle-ship and the coal-truck ; 
his flag flies from a grain-elevator, his trumpet sounds 


4 6 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


from a co-operative store ; be he as martial as he 
may, he cannot escape the mercantile taint of his 
time. 

On each of his annual or bi-annual visits, which 
Elim called the inspections of the War-lord,' Julius 
envied the possession of the Mare Magnum with all 
the keenness of his appetite and ambitions ; and no 
year brought him nearer its conquest. It would not 
have been difficult for him to take it ; to sweep down 
with the molten iron of his mobilised forces over the 
mountains on the north, whilst his fleet steamed into 
the Helianthine waters and shut the sea gates on 
Helios. He would have had no fear of the result 
if — if Europe could have been trusted to remain 
neutral. But he could not trust Europe so far. 
Nay, he was certain that she would stop him in the 
defiles of the northern Alps, as a great Power had 
once been stopped within reach of Stamboul. Europe 
was not ripe for a single dominant master. She had 
no individual love for the King of Helianthus, but 
he was a stop-gap, a buffer, a safety-valve. She had 
no desire for a single conquering hero, for a second 
parterre des rois disarmed and made ridiculous at a 
second Tilsit. The condition of the nations is bad ; 
but a single autocrat, even such a vice-regent of 
Christ as Julius Imperator, would be, Europe thinks, 
infinitely worse. 

So, impotent to realise his vast ambitions, yet 
hovering over them as the hawk over the pigeon’s 
cote, Julius came every year or two to visit his rela- 
tive and ally, and to look with longing eyes and futile 
wishes over the luminous waters whence, ever since 
the days of Homer and of Hesiod, many a fleet of 
fable and of history has sailed away into the golden 


Ill 


HELIANTHUS 


47 


glory of the setting sun, or issued with swelling 
canvas from out the rosy dusk of dawn. Who could 
say that some time might not come when Europe, 
exhausted, over-burdened, or grown indifferent, might 
not let the hawk loosen the hasp of the pigeon-cote 
with his beak ? 

It is said that a monarch, being asked who he 
would be, if he could choose, replied: c If I were not 
myself, I would be my nephew Julius/ But Julius 
was not greatly to be envied ; the torment of an 
insatiable and unrealisable ambition was like a per- 
petual fire in his blood ; he wanted worlds to conquer; 
he wanted the chariot of the sun to take him to the 
capture of new solar systems. 

When the earth is mapped out on a papier-mache 
globe for the use of schools, and travelling tickets 
to go round it are things of daily life, it has ceased 
to be a sphere sufficient for great ambitions. A great 
ambition requires the immeasurable, requires a 
vague distance of golden vapour which can give it a 
horizon, and allure it with a mirage. The earth was 
too small a sphere for Julius, and, unwisely, he had 
hampered himself in the use of such space and oppor- 
tunity as it offered, by having called himself publicly 
and often an apostle of peace. He had a fine engine 
of war at his elbow, but he had told mankind that he 
loved them too well to use it, which was a superfluous 
and paralysing assertion. 

True, it is possible to eat your own words, if you 
have a good digestion and good teeth ; but it is 
better not to have any words which require eating. 
It is better not to compare yourself with Christ, if 
you are desirous of behaving like Attila. 

Julius turned from the balcony with an impatient 


4 8 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


sigh, and flung his cigar into the magnolia grove 
which faced it ; his attendants hastened to make his 
evening toilette, and array him in the glittering 
uniform of that Helianthine regiment of Cuirassiers 
of which he was the Honorary Colonel. 

Helianthus was not for him. Not yet, at least; 
not yet, he thought, as the Helianthine Orders were 
fastened on his breast. All things come to those 
who know how to wait, says the proverb. Alas, no ! 
not all things. Only one thing is certain, — death. 
Of that no one will cheat us, whether we be 
emperors or beggars; and the omnipotent Julius 
sighed. 

A little later, after dinner that evening, he solved the 
problem of the treatment due to the offender on the 
Field of Ares. In a quarter of an hour’s chat with his 
uncle in the smoking-room, with that tact and grace 
which characterised him when he chose to call them 
to his aid, he entreated as a favour to himself that 
nothing should be said or done regarding his cousin’s 
breach of discipline. 

c One must not blame an error of the heart,’ he 
said ; and he combined with true diplomatic skill the 
pleasure, of interceding for a man to whom such 
intercession would be very bitter, and of conveying in 
honeyed phrase his sense that the classic Helianthus 
had many a lesson still to learn from the juvenile 
empire of the Guthones. In the art of presenting a 
rose for the buttonhole with a pin carefully adjusted 
to. prick the skin under the buttonhole, Julius of 
Lillienstauffen had no superior. His rose was always 
sweet ; his pin was always sharp. 

Of course at his request the eccentric act was not 
chastised as it should have been ; no request of such 


Ill 


HELIANTHUS 


49 


a guest could be refused. It was ill-judged amia- 
bility in the guest, thought the King and his generals. 
But Elim knew that it was not amiability at all, but 
some motive exceedingly different. 

To him, at all times, these visits of his cousin 
were a painful, a hated, ordeal. He smarted under 
the concealed patronage, the too extreme praise, the 
highly coloured asseverations of family affection, 
the cruelly courteous expressions of admiration of an 
army in which deficiency was plainly more visible than 
excellence and perfection lagged hopelessly behind. 

c You cannot now deny the tact and the mag- 
nanimity of the Emperor/ said the Crown Prince to his 
wife, who did not reply. She knew that the tact was 
always there, unless temper got the better of it; the 
magnanimity she did not see, but she dared not say so. 
To lay another under an obligation is sometimes a 
very sweet and subtle form of cruelty. Othyris 
would have preferred two years in a fortress, or any 
kind of military degradation, to being under an 
obligation to his imperial cousin. But no choice was 
given him ; and the King took care that the pill should 
be made as bitter as it could be by the aloes and 
assafoetida of his own pharmacopoeia. Julius, how- 
ever, enjoyed a favour in the sight of the people of 
Helios which he had never attained before ; and the 
public having become aware that he had interceded 
to avert punishment from their favourite, cheered 
him with sincerity and enthusiasm for the first time 
as he drove to the station. 

‘ I believe they would receive me with cordiality 
if I conquered them/ he thought, as the same vision 
which had floated before the mind of Elim, of himself, 
Julius Imperator, on a white charger, riding through 


5 ° 


I-IELIANTHUS 


CHAP. Ill 


the city of Helios at the head of his victorious army, 
beguiled his imagination as his train bore him to the 
north-west, homeward to his empire in time to hold 
a review of troops on the morrow on the sandy plains 
of his military capital, and preach a sermon in the 
afternoon in his lay capital, in a newly-built cathedral : 
a sermon of which the text was, c Blessed are the 
peace-makers, for of them is the kingdom of 
heaven/ 

c He is very clever, our Julius/ thought the old 
Emperor Gregory, ruler of the Septentriones, when 
he read the telegraphed heads of that sermon. c He 
would be cleverer still, if he could only hold his 
tongue ! ’ 

But that was the one thing which Julius could not 
do. Nature had denied him the power of silence, or 
the appreciation of the truth that if speech is silver, 
silence is gold. 

Julius, who was one of the multitude of the revered 
Gregory's great-grandchildren, amused that shrewd 
nonagenarian infinitely. Gregory too had been a 
Zeus, but Gregory had taken his own supreme 
divinity more philosophically and less pompously. 
Gregory had always been before everything else a 
man of the world ; and a man of the world never 
overloads colour, or enforces emphasis. 

When Othyris also read the precis of that sermon 
in the newspapers he could willingly have taken his 
imperial cousin by the throat; there are services 
which make the sensitive smart more painfully than 
any outrage, and every syllable of that oration seemed 
to him to emphasise the pardon asked for by Julius 
for the offence on the Field of Ares. 


CHAPTER IV 


Helianthus was a country with a glorious past 
history, and a present which did not satisfy those 
who remembered its past. It was assured by its 
rulers that it was free as air ; the modern synonym 
for freedom is taxation, and of this form of liberty it 
certainly enjoyed its full share ; of other forms it did 
not see much. Everything was taxed in it, from 
the owls’ nests on the roofs of the cabins to the 
unhappy asses which drew the wooden ploughs. In 
return, it received a great many compliments from 
foreign nations, and various visits from foreign 
sovereigns ; possessed a nominally free Press, of 
which the freedom was duly tempered by fines and 
imprisonment ; and enjoyed the enrolment of a vast 
rabble of its own sons, dressed up in clumsy uniforms ; 
huge ships of copper, or steel, or aluminium, lying at 
anchor in its beautiful harbours ; crowds of spies and 
gendarmes in every one of its towns ; armed men at 
all its gates to see that no bunch of grass, or half- 
fledged pullet, passed them without paying its dues ; 
and innumerable prisons, fortresses in exterior and 
hells within, where strength and energy and vigour 
rotted into gibbering idiotcy, and young men grew 
aged in a year. 

Helianthus had three generations earlier dreamed a 


5 2 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


fair and glittering dream of liberty, and had armed like 
a second Joan of Arc ; but like Joan the fetters had 
been put on her limbs, and the smoke of the pyre 
had stifled her breath. Joan died; Helianthus did 
not die — she accepted the loss of her dream. 

The land is sadly changed in its physical and 
architectural features ; the destruction of its forests, 
the drying up of its rivers, the appropriation by 
speculators of its torrents and lakes, the demoli- 
tion of its castles and palaces, have in many parts 
made it featureless, shadeless, arid, the few green 
things which still keep life in them being ruth- 
lessly gnawed, as they sprout, by the famished flocks 
of goats and sheep. But in many other portions 
of its legend-haunted soil it is beautiful still ; in its 
limpid atmosphere, in the lovely colour of its moun- 
tains, in its ancient gardens, in its gorgeous sunsets, 
in its moonlit nights, in its roseate dawns, in its 
immemorial woods, melodious with the voice of the 
nightingale, something of the youth of the world 
still lingers, still awakes with the blossoms of spring. 
In harsh incongruity with it, incongruous as the 
scream of steam on its waters, as the buzz of machines 
in its plough-furrows, as the rush of electric cars 
down its ancient streets, is the House of Gunderode, 
which has ruled over it for three generations. 

Having helped to free the blood-mare from the 
lasso cast over her, her saviours put a halter in its 
stead upon her neck, and jumped upon her back 
with an agility so admirable that the rest of the 
nations applauded. A circus trick is often confused 
by the world with noble horsemanship. 

The Gunderode were chiefly, in their stock and in 
their temper, Guthonic. They were a northern race. 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


53 


partly through origin, and largely by marriage. 
Their character was the antithesis of that of the 
Helianthine. Connubial unions had given them 
many mixed strains in their blood, but of pure 
Helianthine blood they had not a drop. 

They claimed descent from Orderic, a chief of the 
Huns. From the sixth to the ninth century they had 
been robber-barons ; in the Middle Ages they had 
become lords and margraves of the south-east of 
Europe ; in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by 
craft and judgment and shrewd watching, by the seiz- 
ing of opportunity, the making of alliances, and the 
seeking and forming of great marriages, they had 
increased their position to a petty sovereignty ; a 
duchy at first, then a principality, then a kingdom, 
gradually strengthened and widened by the annexation 
of frontier towns, of ecclesiastical cities, of military 
bishoprics, of mountain strongholds, of hill and lake, 
of moor and fief. 

The Gunderode family were physically brave, of 
course (for in those times courage did not excite the 
surprise which it awakens nowadays !), but they were 
politic, wary, keen to amass, slow to relinquish ; and 
these qualities obtained them more advancement than 
did their bravery. The sword of the Gunderodes 
had a cross for its hilt and a double edge to its blade ; 
it served them equally well when they swore an oath 
as when they cut down a foe. The oaths were not 
always, nor were they often, kept ; but the foe was 
always cleft through skull and crop. 

In the hurly-burly of the Napoleonic wars they 
had been careful to hunt with the hounds and run 
with the hare. All things brought them harvest. 
They were careful, cautious, and cold. Although 


54 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


they had been always absolutists in action they had 
contrived to obtain a reputation for liberal principles. 
A wild boar, breaking a huge chain fastened round 
his loins, was their emblem. It pleased the popular 
fancy as an emblem of freedom. The boar sat square 
upon the throne ; and, thinking it a pity that the 
chain should be of no use, had it picked up and 
soldered on to the limbs of some of the persons who 
had helped him to mount; there was thus no danger 
of their ever making him descend. 

In the effigy of the wild boar it was true the 
animal was represented in the act of breaking his 
own chains ; but the populace, paraphrasing Dante, 
found that he broke them only to forge and rivet them 
the more firmly on others. In fact, by the time that 
the third generation occupied the Helianthine throne, 
the Gunderodes had acquired the belief that they 
were its occupants by hereditary right, even as the 
up-stream wolf, as Mark Twain calls the astute 
beast of the fable, held the belief that the stream 
was his by divine right. The timid remonstrances 
of the nation were heard no more than were those of 
the lamb by the wolf. 

The House of Gunderode, once taking, always 
retained; the people of Helianthus understood 
too late what they had done when they had lent 
themselves to its fatal absorption of their birthright. 
The acquisition of supreme dominion had been so 
gradual that the people still did not entirely realise what 
they had lost. The outward forms of constitutional 
freedom were carefully preserved ; the people did 
not perceive that the substance had disappeared out 
of their hold. One of the oddest facts about the 
last hundred years is the manner in which the popu- 


HELIANTHUS 


IV 


55 


lace everywhere has parted with its liberties, and been 
persuaded to imagine that it has increased them. 

A similar history to that of the Helianthines can 
be told of other peoples. Reigning races resemble 
planets : some are still nebulous and scarcely formed, 
bathed in the effulgence of a rising sun ; others are 
exhausted and chill, growing dim in their twilight ; 
others again are at their perihelion, most glorious to 
behold ; but the manner of formation and increase 
of them all is identical. 

If a sceptical mind inquires doubtfully why the 
planets were created at all, such a mind no doubt 
belongs to an anarchist and not to an astronomer. 

The first Gunderode who had been called King of 
Helianthus (he had never been crowned, nor have his 
descendants) had been the famous Theodoric, invari- 
ably called the Liberator, of whom the effigies in 
bronze, or marble, or stone, stand thick as pebbles on 
a beach all over the land. His successor had been 
his son Theodoric II., a nonentity though a martinet. 
The third in succession was the present ruler, John 
Orderic, who had ascended the throne at five-and- 
twenty years old, and had found the seat to his 
liking. He had not the wonderful protean abilities 
of his nephew Julius, which enabled the latter to be 
a despot and to seem a dilettante, to garrotte a nation 
and to play the violin, to telephone the order for a 
massacre and to model the shape of a fusee-box : 
that kind of activity was not in John of Gunderode, 
who was as incapable of versatility as a wooden 
nutmeg. He even, indeed, viewed with contempt 
these kaleidoscopic qualities in his nephew ; and 
remained cold when the War-lord of the Guthones 
sang, fiddled, painted, modelled, wrote an oratorio, 


CHAP. 


56 HELIANTHUS 

or designed a uniform, to the admiration of a wonder- 
ing world. 

But he was a shrewd, keen, selfish, cautious ruler and 
reader of men. Sentiment never interfered in him with 
judgment, and no instinct of kindness ever weakened 
his wisdom. He was exceedingly strong in many 
things; in nothing stronger than in never being 
drawn into giving his reasons. Whoever gives his 
reasons, gives a hostage to his adversaries. He 
acted ; and let others waste their time, if they chose, 
in conjectures as to why his acts took such a shape 
instead of such another. This spared him much 
time, and saved him from ever contradicting himself. 
It was thus that he made a gramme of brains do the 
work of an ounce, and a very ordinary personage 
appear a statesman and a diplomatist. 

The brain, moreover, grows keener by being 
incessantly sharpened on the grindstone of self- 
interest and suspicion ; and by the time he was 
forty years old he had become an able tactician 
and an unerring observer. Had he been born in 
private life he would have been respected by his 
neighbours, secret but severe in his business trans- 
actions, harsh but faithful as a husband, cold but 
careful as a father ; he would have gone unloved 
through life, but in death would have been regretted 
by his bankers if cursed by his clerks. 

In the exalted position which he filled, his worst 
qualities were cultured and strengthened, and his 
better qualities early perished of atrophy, under 
the stifling compost which makes the hot-beds of 
Courts. 

The Chinese, it is said, put a child into a vase of 
pottery and keep him in it until he is a man ; in 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


57 


consequence his limbs and body never grow bigger 
than the pot which confines them. The pot into 
which a monarch is put is not seen, and does not 
imprison his body, only his mind ; and in old times 
his jester was privileged to come and shake bells, 
and tell truths, over the pot. But there are no jest- 
ers of that kind now ; there are only newspapers to 
do the fooling, and if any truth is told by them 
they are forthwith prosecuted for libel. Actions for 
lese majeste are very frequent in Helianthus ; months 
and even years of imprisonment punish any plain 
speaking about distinguished persons, so that the 
Press of the country never by any chance ventures 
to blame the House of Gunderode. 

A little girl once said to another: ‘What do you 
think God is like ? * ‘ Like my Papa/ replied the 

other without hesitation. ‘ Like my Papa, you 
mean/ said the first, with indignant conviction. It 
is probable that every monarch has in his mind's eye 
a Deity fashioned, not like his sire, but after his own 
likeness, or rather that which he imagines is his like- 
ness. This Deity is more or less real, more or less 
near, more or less to be admired or dreaded, accord- 
ing to the temperament of the sovereign he protects. 
Some go so far as to believe that they have received 
an exequatur i rom the Most High in the same way as 
they give one to their clergy. It is these rulers who 
believe in the crime of lese majeste , and imprison 
professors, caricaturists, comic singers, and workmen 
for the treason of satire or laughter. Others do not 
go so far as this ; they have doubts about their own 
celestial origin and appointment; they imagine that 
what they call Providence is a kind of Chief Con- 
stable, and consider themselves as appointed his sub- 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


58 


inspectors ; but they, also, believe in lese majeste as 
the policeman believes in tip-cat and hooligans ; like 
tip-cat and hooligans it must be put down at all costs. 

To this latter category John of Gunderode inclined 
from the bias of his temperament. He was a man of 
much good common sense, and his Deity was a nebu- 
lous personality, vague, remote, not needing much 
consideration, a useful figure to carry in procession, 
as a black Virgin or a waxen Jesus is carried round a 
town on great occasions such as a visitation of cholera 
or a famine. That he was guided by the Most High 
when he made war, sent socialists to a penitentiary, 
escaped a pistol shot, or prevented a popular measure 
from becoming law, he did not believe, as his nephew 
J ulius believed it of himself ; he did not think himself 
the Elder Brother of Christ, and the administrator of 
Providence, as Julius believed himself to be. Deity 
was to him a quantite negligeable , exceedingly neglige- 
able. Cromwell in his famous exhortation placed 
his God first, and his gunpowder second. John of 
Gunderode reversed the order of the precedence. 
The casting of his cannon was of more importance 
to him than the celebration of a Te Deum or a 
Hosanna ; his mind was narrow but robust. 

Second only to the political successes of his reign 
was the interest possessed for him by the fluctuations 
of his investments. A potentate has lately said with 
considerable naivete that the prestige of his order 
has diminished in these later years ; he might have 
said that it is not possible for any one man to be at 
once a Caesar Imperator, a Grand Monarque, and an 
impassioned investor in Preference Shares. 

At present the nations in general do not realise 
that the anointed sovereigns of the world have 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


59 


swords at their sides and cannon at their command, 
and crowns and sceptres, orbs and miniver, in their 
wardrobes, but keep in their hands the Share List as 
their favourite reading : when the nations do realise 
this, c prestige ’ will drop lower still, and crowns will 
cease to be quoted at par. 

At an early age the present King of Helianthus 
had been wedded by his father to a princess of a small 
northern kingdom ; a plain, dull, uninteresting young 
woman who gave birth to a son, or, as the jour- 
nalists said, to a Crown Prince, and then, with her 
usual discretion, retired into the grave, leaving her 
place to be filled by a lovelier successor, a grand- 
daughter of the famous aged Emperor Gregory, 
who was called the Nestor of Europe, the ruler of 
that enormous empire of which the huge penumbra 
overshadows two quarters of the globe. 

She was an exceedingly beautiful woman, with 
an infinite grace of form and bearing, and a wistful 
melancholy in her eyes, which were of the colour of 
the northern seas in summer. In ten sad years this 
patient victim of policy had borne King John four 
sons and two daughters : Elim, Duke of Othyris ; 
Alexis, Prince of Tyras; Constantine, Duke of 
Esthonia; Frederic, Count of Idumasa; and two 
daughters, Ottoline and Euphrosyne, the former 
married to a Lillienstauffen, the latter betrothed to 
her cousin, a great-grandson of the Emperor Gregory. 

On the hard granite of the King’s irresponsive, sullen, 
unkind temperament, the Queen’s sensitive and timid 
nature had been thrown as a hind is thrown on a rock 
to be grallocked. Fear came into her lovely startled 
eyes whenever she heard his step or his voice, as into 
the eyes of the doe when she sees the steel gleam of 


6 o 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


the death-tubes shine above the heather. Her own 
family knew that she was extremely unhappy ; but 
no imperial or royal family can interfere in the 
unhappiness which may ensue from one of its State 
alliances ; the only anxiety and effort of the family is 
to prevent any publicity of the fact that the union 
is discord, and this was easy in her case, for she shrank 
from all publicity herself. c Faut ensorceler ton homme , 
ma 'petite! Ouf ! tu es belle ! y said old Gregory to « 
her once ; but he knew that no living woman could 
move by a hair’s breadth the temper of John of 
Gunderode any more than a moonbeam can melt a 
stone. That the King was not more unkind than he 
was to her, was due to the great respect he felt for 
the aged tyrant of the Septentriones, and to the 
residence in the country of one of her brothers, the 
Grand Duke Basil. Her first-born, so like her 
physically and morally, had for her sake as well as for 
his own been dear to her brother, a celibate, a con- 
noisseur, a fine musician, a profound scholar, a prey 
to the melancholy of desires which nothing earthly 
could satisfy, and of ill-health which could be miti- 
gated by care and by climate, but never be cured. 
The greater part of Elim’s early youth was spent 
with his uncle Basil in the palaces which the Grand 
Duke had purchased in his sister’s adopted country 
— that Helianthus so dear to all Hellenists and 
Latinists for its incomparable traditions, its art, its 
literature, its history. 

The boy, extremely impressionable in feeling, was 
strongly resistant to alien mental influence. Nothing 
could be done with him intellectually when he did 
not choose. They could make him unhappy, but 
they could not make him receptive. To some kinds 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


6 1 


of influence he was very open, but to many he was 
adamant. This power of passive but unyielding 
resistance had preserved his originality. 

To his uncle Basil, with his scholar’s reverence 
for the past and his satirist’s contempt for the 
present, his brother-in-law of Gunderode was an 
intolerably false note in that classic harmony which 
had been called, for two thousand years, Helianthus ; 
a false note, like a motor-car on the plain of 
Thebes, a cyclist under the palms of Nile, a con- 
script on guard on the Capitol, a policeman in 
front of York Minster, an American tourist smoking 
where the lions still roam amongst the ruins of 
Palmyra ; like any one or any thing -discordant, in- 
congruous, irritating, commonplace, intolerable ; 
absolutely intolerable as the ruler of a State which 
was steeped in classic and poetic memories, and was 
in its atmosphere, in its legends, in its genius, in its 
landscapes, full of a spiritual and melancholy beauty. 

c Heavens and earth, he is as incongruous here as 
a kepi set on the head of an Apollo ! ’ thought the 
Grand Duke. But of what he thought and of what 
he felt concerning his sister’s husband he never 
spoke. 

Between Elim and his father there had been always 
a great antagonism. As a child he had a very sensitive 
musical ear, and the shrieking of fifes and the beating 
of drums were a torture to him ; he would run off 
and hide anywhere he could, away from the squeak 
of the bugle, and cover his ears with his hands 
whenever he heard regiments marching past the 
palace, or merely a company going to change 
guard. His governor, by the King’s order, showed 
no mercy to this instinct; and frequently the 


62 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


boy was taken to the Field of Ares, or to one 
of the barrack-yards, simply to punish his tym- 
panum for its sensitiveness and give his nerves 
cruel suffering. To his father’s taste, the shrill 
fife and the sullen drum gave the only melody 
worth hearing. When his wife timidly urged in 
Elim’s excuse, that the child Wolfgang Mozart 
had shown a similar sensibility, the monarch looked 
at her with astonishment. What was Mozart? A 
Kapelmeister ! Mozart had never been even a drum- 
major ! 

When Elim was ten years old a sea eagle was 
brought one day to the Palace, and caged on one of 
the terraces overlooking the sea. It had a wounded 
wing and had been captured when resting on the 
mast of a fishing-coble. The imprisonment and 
immobility of the grand bird tortured the little 
Prince every day that he went into the gardens. 
To see its closed eyes, its drooped pinions, its 
ruffled and lustreless plumage, its wretched restless 
movements at times in its narrow prison, followed 
by long hours when it sat motionless in stupor 
and despair, so wrought upon his nerves that it 
became almost an illness to him. In vain did his 
tutors punish, and his mother try to reason with him. 

c Set him free/ he said in an anguish of sym- 
pathy. c Set him free. Shut me up in his place. 
But set him free.’ 

The Queen, who knew that her best-beloved son 
had inherited that impulse of tenderness and pity 
from herself, was at last so moved by the distress of 
the child, and that of the bird, that she ventured to 
beg for the freedom of the eagle of her husband. 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


6 3 


The broken wing had healed, flight would, she urged, 
be possible, and a painful sight would be spared to 
a sensitive little soul. 

The King seldom granted any request of hers : 
her wishes always appeared to him sentimental fancies 
which were best nippedin the bud; everything seemed 
sentimental in his sight which was not connected with 
finance or with the army. She had no influence 
whatever on him ; her delicacy of beauty, physical and 
moral, was no more to him than the rose hues of the 
dianthus — no more than the gemmae are to the 
rocks on which the sea waves cast them. Her inter- 
cession was therefore seldom successful, her gentle 
voice was seldom listened to ; but to her surprise he 
this time acceded to her wish. 

c But make this condition with your boy/ he 
said to her. c He is idle, they tell me, and back- 
ward. Let him learn the first book of the Iliad by 
heart in the Latin translation. When he can recite 
it, the bird shall be set free/ 

Elim, who was certainly backward, gave himself 
to the task as he had never done to any other 
through fear of punishment or promise of pleasure. 
He learned the allotted verse with a stubborn devo- 
tion to its difficult text which his tutors had never 
seen in him, and in much less time than they had 
expected. With a rapidity which seemed incredible 
to them, and a perfect accuracy of quantity and of 
accent, he committed to memory the long sonorous 
lines, and declaimed them to his preceptor, standing 
with his hands behind his back, and the sun in his 
face, on the sea-terrace where the bird was caged 
beneath a spreading plane-tree. 

His parents were present ; his mother’s eyes were 


6 4 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


filled with tears of delight and pride ; his father 
stood with his eternal cigarette between his lips, and 
listened with critical coldness and in harsh readiness 
to discover a flaw in word or measure ; he had come 
in from shooting, and his gun was lying across a 
garden chair by his side. But Elim made no mistake. 
Whilst he recited the verse his eyes were fixed on 
the dark, motionless, pining form of the imprisoned 
eagle. Its ransom depended on himself; he made 
no fault of memory or quantity. When he had 
spoken the last line he stood silent, breathless, red 
as a rose, with hope and expectation. 

‘It was well said, was it not?’ his mother mur- 
mured timidly to her husband. 

The King nodded. 

‘Open the eagle’s cage,’ he said to one of his 
gentlemen. 

The child sprang forward and kissed his father’s 
hand in a rapture of joy and gratitude. 

‘No sentiment!’ said the sovereign, putting him 
aside with some impatience. He disliked all emotion 
and all demonstration. 

One of the gentlemen of the household had 
made believe to open the door of the cage, but in 
reality a gardener had executed the order; it was 
done not without danger, for the bird, realising its 
liberty, might have used its strength of beak or claws. 

They stood together and watched, the sovereigns 
in front, the boy by their side, the courtiers behind. 
The ecstasy and expectation on Elim’s fair face were 
like those on the face of a young seraph in a Fra 
Angelico fresco ; his lips were parted, his breath 
came fast and loud, he trembled in every nerve 
with his great joy. 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


65 


The door of the cage was drawn open ; the men 
retreated ; for some moments the bird did not seem 
to see that anything had happened ; he sat, a 
miserable heap of dull tarnished feathers, his head 
sunk into his neck. Then, slowly, he seemed to 
become aware of more air, more light, of something 
unusual ; he shook his plumage, his wings began to 
thrill and move and open, his head was lifted, his 
eyes gazed at his comrade the sun in the blue sum- 
mer heavens. 

The Queen thought of the eagle in the story of 
Dostoiewsky, the eagle that the prisoners in Siberia 
set free, and watched, winging his way over the 
snowy steppes in that freedom which was for ever 
denied to themselves. 

c Dear child ! ’ she murmured, and laid her hand 
on Elim’s golden head. 

The bird paused a moment on the threshold 
of his prison, then with expanded wings sailed, 
slowly and majestically, over the marble parapet of 
the terrace, out into the air and above the sea. 

Elim stood transfixed and transfigured by ecstasy 
as his gaze followed the flight of the captive he had 
set free. 

The King also followed the flight of the bird 
with his eyes. His gun, lying across the chair, was 
loaded ; he took it, and raised it to his shoulder, 
aimed at the eagle rising higher and higher and 
higher into the blue ether, and fired. 

The shot rang sharp and hard through the 
morning stillness. Another followed it. The eagle 
dropped dead into the sea. John of Gunderode 
gave his breech-loader to one of his attendants. 

Elim, his eyes wide open in horror, swayed 


66 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


blindly to and fro, then fell back insensible into his 
mother’s trembling arms. 

‘Little idiot!’ said his father, with contempt. 
He had not meant to do anything especially unkind ; 
he had followed that insane impulse of the sportsman 
to kill everything that flies, which, in its continual 
indulgence, becomes a form of dementia. 

The courtiers, the ladies, the preceptors joined 
in a chorus of wondering admiration : what sight, 
what precision, what wonderful accuracy of aim ! 

The Crown Prince gave the big boy’s guffaw of 
enjoyment. The younger children screamed shrilly 
with delight and danced in glee. 

For several weeks Elim’s life was despaired of: 
meningitis in its worst shape pressed its red-hot 
iron gauntlet on his brain and spine ; the devotion 
of his mother saved him. 

From that morning his soul was filled with the 
most unconquerable distrust of every act and word of 
his father’s ; and a sombre and mutual dislike grew up 
between them as between the betrayed and the 
betrayer. It grew with growth, and each felt for the 
other an unchangeable and deeply-rooted aversion. 

After twenty years of an exemplary life, during 
which she had never known a moment’s free will, or 
been allowed a moment’s individual action, the fair 
Queen had died, as a flower without light or air 
fades away and perishes. 

‘No one wants me any more,’ she said, with 
a patient smile. Her eldest and best-beloved son 
threw his arms about her with passionate tenderness 
as though he would dispute her with death itself, 
for there was an exquisite sympathy between them. 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


67 


c I shall want you all my life, my darling mother ! ’ 
Her wasted, transparent hand rested fondly on 
his hair. c Oh, my love, you will have so many 
other ties/ 

• Perhaps so, perhaps not/ said Elim. c None 
will or can be to me what you have been, my dear- 
est and best ! * 

He had given to her the most devoted affection 
and sympathy, and his indignation at his father’s 
treatment of her had been only the more intense 
and embittered because it had perforce been shut up 
in his own breast. 


Elim grew up to a beautiful adolescence, and a 
manhood of great promise for the future, should he 
ever reign ; he resembled the Adonis of the Soleia 
in form and feature, and was remarkable for grace 
and charm rather than for masculine force. His 
health was good, or, at least, he never gratified any 
of the Court physicians by complaining of it; his 
constitution was sound, but he suffered from the chief 
of modern diseases, ennui ; and it is the procreator 
of many others. It always seemed to him that he 
had been born to be the victim of captivity like 
any unhappy animal who comes out of its mother’s 
womb in the cage of a menagerie, and passes infancy 
and youth behind those bars, and is supposed by 
fools to know no other life and to want no other, 
because of any other he has only instinct and no 
experience to tell him. 

That he could never be induced to see that his own 
order was a thing apart, a species made of different 
clay to the general, was an exasperation to all his 
relatives. Princes, although in felt hats and ulsters, 


68 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


ought to feel themselves altogether apart from the 
crowds similarly clad on a highway, a race-course, or 
a skating-ground. This sense of his own electness 
was altogether missing in him ; and his want of it 
was an affront to those who had the most profound 
belief that they were pure gold, and every one else 
copper, or tin, or nickel. 

The diversions of his brother Tyras were chiefly 
such as a decent street-sweeper or stone-breaker 
would be ashamed of, but they did not offend the 
family as greatly as the opinions and practices of 
Othyris. Privilege covered them ; whereas Othyris 
tore privilege to tatters. He hated the men who 
bent their backs in two as they were received 
by him ; he hated the women who dropped before 
him curtsies so low that they seemed to sink 
into the carpet. The supple spine, the pliable 
knees, seemed to him to degrade humanity in 
their persons. He was popular with the nation, 
but the Court was unanimous in its dislike of him. 
The Court saw its vested interests, its shibboleths, 
its salaries, its actual existence, menaced by him ; 
and except in a few women he had no friends in 
his father’s palaces or even in his own. Every one 
whose interests were rooted in Court favour, Court 
honours, Court pomps and vanities, dignities and 
perquisites, knowing that he was near enough in 
the line of succession to make his advent to the 
throne a serious possibility, could not but view with 
horror and with terror the eventuality of a reign in 
which they would all, figuratively speaking, be put 
on rations of black bread, if they were not bundled 
neck and crop out of their Holy of Holies into 
ordinary and undecorated life. 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


69 


When he had been a mere youth they had thought 
that his eccentricities would wear smooth with time ; 
but year after year passed, and he did not abandon 
his early opinions as most men do ; he did not wash 
in the Jordan of conventionality and become cleansed. 
When the Court contemplated all that such a king 
would mean to them, they felt that even such a 
saintly woman as Princess Gertrude ought to be 
divorced, as the Creole sinner Josephine had been, 
for the sake of the public weal. 

c Mine is a vie manquee ,’ thought Othyris often. 
c I am of what is called royal birth, and I have no 
belief in royalty. I am a revolutionist at heart, but 
loyalty to my family forbids me to be so in action. 
I am an artist in instinct and appreciation, but I have 
not the artist’s power to create, and to absorb himself 
in his creations. All my sympathies are with the 
poor and the weak, and I am forced to live with 
the rich and the strong. I abhor war and militarism, 
and I am made, perforce, a Colonel of Cuirassiers and 
a General of a Division. I know not what my 
end may be, but I shall probably say, like my uncle 
Basil, “ I have loved justice and hated iniquity, 
wherefore now I die in exile.” ’ 

The Grand Duke Basil also hated the military type 
and hated militarism. His constitution had been 
ruined by its discipline, and his youth embittered by 
its rigours. But he was too honourable a man to per- 
mit himself to prejudice the son against the father. 
Elim never heard from him a disparaging word of 
either the King or the King’s measures ; but the 
influence of the intellectual atmosphere which sur- 
rounded him in his uncle’s house inevitably gave its 
colour and its bias to his mind, which had all the 


70 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


receptivity of youth with the quick apprehension 
natural to talent, and an inborn tendency to resist 
conventional ideas. The Kings aversion to his 
brother-in-law was as great as that of the Grand Duke 
to him ; but in the monarch every sentiment was sub- 
ordinate to the organ of acquisitiveness ; and he loved 
the fortune of Basil if he detested his person. There- 
fore the smooth ice of a chill, impeccable courtesy 
covered their relations at all times, and, through his 
uncle’s wishes and influence, Elim enjoyed a measure 
of repose and of freedom which otherwise would 
never have been his portion. In the beautiful soli- 
tudes of iEnothrea, his uncle’s favourite sojourn, he 
could forget that he was a prince and be the poet, 
the artist, the dreamer, which nature had made him. 

Basil, the King thought, emasculated the character 
of a youth already only too susceptible to all senti- 
mental follies and heresies ; but if Paris were well 
worth the sacrifice of a mass, according to the 
Bearnais, . the vast fortune of his brother-in-law 
would, he considered, be well worth that of a 
foolish young man ; and he was led the more easily 
to this conclusion by what he knew of the extreme 
uncertainty of the life of the Grand Duke, who had 
cardiac affections of the most dangerous kind, and 
might die at any moment, — as, in fact, he did die, 
suddenly, as he strolled amongst his roses one summer 
day, when Elim was twenty years old. Everything 
he possessed in Helianthus, all his great estates and 
the chief bulk of his personalty, was bequeathed to 
his nephew, and rendered him one of the richest 
princes of Europe. 

Othyris was considered by his family to encourage 
the most subversive projects upon his lands, and 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


7 1 


at the same time to keep up the most antiquated 
absurdities. Worse still, he had even desired and 
asked the King’s permission to refuse the grant 
made to him on the Civil List by the nation in common 
with the other princes. When he urged that he did 
not require such an addition to his wealth, the expla- 
nation seemed as bad as the intention which prompted 
it. Who had ever heard in empire, kingdom, or 
principality of a royal person who declined the 
people’s money ? He was not permitted by his 
father to have his way in this, and could only relieve 
his conscience by spending all of it in public works 
or private charity, so that the money went indirectly 
back to the nation which gave it : a most senseless 
and demoralising proceeding, according to his rela- 
tives, who always considered all provisions made 
for them by the State miserably mean and wholly 
inferior to their merits. 

It also made his family very angry that Othyris 
would never take any precautions for his own safety. 
He went about in town or country, on foot or on 
horseback, or on his mail phaeton, like any private 
gentleman. His indifference to danger, or his con- 
fidence in his popularity, seemed a reflection on the 
fears of his family in surrounding themselves with 
so many precautions. 

He left the motor-cars and the bicycles to his 
brothers ; they seemed to him to profane the marble 
dust and the herb-scented moors of Helianthus. He 
loved his horses ; and like Lord Byron he loved to 
ride in the brilliant moonlight along the silent sands, 
or over the fragrant plains, with nothing beside him 
but the shadows of himself and of his steed, and the 
scent of the sea or the perfume of the wild thyme in 


72 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


his nostrils. His stables were full of the fleetest and 
finest horses in Europe ; but he took no pleasure in 
the stupid and barbaric pastime of racing. To see a 
colt or a filly flogged along a course, with streaming 
sides and smoking nostrils, was to him a hateful sight. 
To enhance the interest of the struggle by putting 
money on it, as you add cayenne to your soup, seemed 
to him an avowal that you were moved by the basest 
of appetites ; he esteemed more highly the punters at 
Monte Carlo than the members of the Jockey Clubs. 

c You were born without the gambling instinct, 
but you can acquire it. People do not like opium 
when they begin it,* said Tyras to him once. But 
the acquisition did not seem to him desirable ; and he 
remained aloof from the Turf as from the narcotic. 

There was racing all over Helianthus : there had 
been racing of all kinds in the land for over two 
thousand years, and the ruins of many a great hippo- 
drome towered on lonely wastes and amidst crowded 
streets, in witness of the national pastime and its 
universal fascination. Elim’s dislike to it, and his 
refusal ever to enter a horse for a race, or to keep a 
racing-stable, was one of the few unpopular traits in 
his character. 

c Go against a nation's best interests, and as likely 
as not it will lick your feet,' his uncle Basil had said 
once to him. c But oppose its amusements and its 
appetites, and it will gibbet you.’ 

c I will take the risk,' said Elim. c At least, I shall 
not oppose them ; but I shall not share them.' 

The. King did not interfere in this matter; he 
felt obliged to attend the great races of the year for 
the sake of popularity, but he had a good deal of 
common sense about certain things, and he con- 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


73 


sidered the Turf guilty of the deterioration of the 
equine race, by the substitution of mere speed for 
staying power. 

Races could do nothing to improve the breeds of 
cavalry horses ; he would have revived the massive 
destrier of Philippe Auguste and of Barbarossa had 
he been able. 

So Othyris, unmolested in this matter, used his 
horses only for exercise ; and, although he rode far 
and fast, never brought them back distressed or in a 
lather. What he especially enjoyed was to escape 
from the gentlemen riding after him, and get out by 
himself into the solitudes of the more distant country, 
taking his chance of the banded robbers whose 
exploits still gave a dramatic colour to the thickets of 
oleanders and pomegranates by the sea shores, and to 
the ilex and olive woods of the more remote hillsides. 

c Your lonely rides are very dangerous/ his elder 
brother said to him one day. 

‘Yes, perhaps/ said Othyris. ‘But not much 
more dangerous than to get into an electric tram-car, 
or to walk across the lines of light railways, and how 
much more agreeable ! Besides, the brigands would 
not hurt me ; they would know I should be worth 
money ; they would even, perhaps, leave me my clothes 
and give me smoked kid and smuggled cigars. But 
the trains and the trams are democratic institutions : 
they would crush me as impartially as they crush 
counterjumpers or bankers’ clerks.’ 

‘You always jest/ grumbled Theo. He himself 
never jested : it was said that he had never even 
played in his nursery days except with tin soldiers. 

Between him and Othyris militarism was built up 
like a stone wall. 


74 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


No conscript, sweating in a forced march under 
.the weight of arms and knapsack, hated the military 
service as the second son of the King hated and 
despised it. He wrote some poems which were called 
c Bum spiro, suspiro * ; they were sent anonymously 
to an independent journal, and caused much wonder 
and comment ; they caused, too, the sequestration of 
the newspaper at the issue of the fifth poem. As he 
kept his own confidence, nobody betrayed him, and 
when the editor received a bank-note for double the 
amount of the fine imposed on him, he was too wise 
to try to find out who was the sender. 

Not less burdensome than the military obligations 
was the possibility that any day, any year, he might 
be called to occupy the throne. The Crown Prince 
was a sportsman, untiring and reckless ; there was 
always the chance of some violence cutting short his 
life, for he was brave to fool-hardiness. When he 
did think of this very possible contingency, the Heir- 
Presumptive to the crown shrank as from a far greater 
calamity than death. 

Othyris had no dreams or vanities to console him. 
He knew that kings who refuse to accept the illusions 
which surround them from their birth are of all mortals 
the most miserable; that for them, beyond all men, 
to issue from the web of existing circumstance is 
impossible. 

He would have renounced his place in the succession 
without hesitation, had not the man who would come 
after him been a worthless scamp. Who could, with 
any conscience or sense of human responsibility, 
deliver a nation into such hands as those of Tyras ? 
His own, he knew, were weak, but at least they were 
clean. He did not believe that he would be able to do 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


75 


any good if he became king, because vested interests 
would be stronger than he. Ministers would thwart, 
courtiers conspire, women intrigue ; when he would 
desire to bless he would be forced to curse ; between 
him and the people there would be always the mis- 
representations of the Press, or that gross flattery 
which defiles more than its abuse. He had no 
illusions ; he was no Hercules that he would be 
able to slay the Hydra; instead, the Hydra would 
stifle him in feigning to embrace him. Yet he felt 
that he could not in common courage and decency 
pass the crown to such a one as the man whose nick- 
name was Gavroche. Nor could he ever do as he 
would have liked to do, should he ever succeed to the 
throne, — abolish the constitution and the monarchy, 
and change the country into a republic based not on 
transatlantic but on ancient precedent. His brothers 
would most certainly take up arms against him in 
such an event ; there would be civil war in the 
streets, and in the provinces the land would be 
delivered over to all the furies. To let Hell loose 
in such a manner would not be a thing to be thought 
of for a moment. Therefore if called to the succession 
he would be compelled by circumstance to enter, and 
remain in, the groove which he abhorred, to sacrifice 
his existence to formula, to ceremony, to vain pomp, 
and to silly shibboleth. A friend had once said to 
him, c Make your personality felt.’ But he knew, 
he who had been born and reared in a Court, that 
around every prince, every monarch, there are in- 
fluences far stronger than his own, which paralyse his 
influence, intercept its action, and transmute its power 
into impotence wherever, however, it may cross and 
menace established claims, precedents, rights, privi- 
leges, conventionalities, and customs. 


7 6 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


He knew that the Ministers who would kneel to 
him would be his masters, that their shadows would 
be always between him and the people ; that, change 
them as he might, they would be of the same eternal 
type : their religion, office; their evangel, a tax-paper. 
He would be no more able to alter the poverty, the 
injustice, the agonies of human life in his kingdom 
than any peasant who dragged bare limbs over 
scorched sods in the wake of the ploughshare. 
Individual charity he might give, individual lots he 
might alleviate ; but to the vast mass of hopeless 
misery he would be able to give no comfort. The 
great engines of torture, the great grindstones of 
pressure, militarism, commerce, taxation, cheap labour, 
the dropsy of capital, the exploitation of misery ; all 
these, and all the ills which they engender, he 
would be no more able to touch than if he were a 
stevedore labouring in the hold of a steamship in the 
harbour. The makers of phrases, the grinders of 
souls, the drivers of hunger, would always be stronger 
than he. They would leave his multitudes in the 
death-pits, on the battlefields, in the dens of the 
sweaters, in the black tunnels of the mines, in the 
stricken, blighted fields, in the huts without light, or 
fire, or food ; and he would be powerless to rescue 
those who would be called his people. 

The contrast between a monarch’s semblance of 
dominion and his absolute impotence in reality, seemed 
to him the most cruel and cynical antithesis the world 
contained. His father was content with the only real 
power which royalty confers on royalty — the power of 
gathering riches, and placing them in safety out of 
reach of evil chance ; but he would not be so content. 
Nor would the lesser privileges of authority satisfy 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


77 


him without the power to alter laws, to divide capital, 
to reconstruct society, to humanise criminal punish- 
ment, to guide the people to the light as it was visible 
to him ; and what king could do aught of this ? 
Nay, in modern life, could Krishna, or Christ, or 
Mahomet, do it ? 

Even in the affairs of daily life he was constantly 
met and checked by an absolute powerlessness to 
do what he desired for the welfare of the people. 
Money he could give, and did give ; but there are 
evils and sorrows which money, magician though it 
be, cannot cure. If you give money you create a 
proletariate amongst the poor, and a crowd of toadies 
amongst those whose god it is ; and you can only 
give ; you cannot ensure, or even control, the effects 
of your gift. He knew that well. He could alleviate 
physical ills indeed, but he could not alter moral ills. 
He could not follow the course of his gifts any more 
than a florist can follow the fate of flowers he cuts 
and sends away to strangers. There was no Poor 
Law in the country to diminish, however feebly, the 
suffering of the poor. There was only the tax of 
the State on the youth of the State : the hateful and 
almost universal law of conscription which seized 
from two to three years from the life of nearly every 
young man born in the kingdom. He felt this 
most acutely when the lads on his own estates were 
taken; he could not save them, he could not 
ask for any exemption for them ; and they who 
believed in his omnipotence supposed that he would 
not help them because he thought the blood-tax just 
and righteous. He loathed it, but he could no more 
change it than he could have moved the range of the 
Rhaetian Mountains. If ever he reigned, would the 


78 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


political parties permit him to abolish compulsory 
military service ? He had no hope of it. The 
populace would have rejoiced if the weight of arms 
had been lifted off their sons’ shoulders ; but the 
ruling classes would never have allowed a voluntary 
and paid force to be substituted for the conscripts so 
numerous, and, by comparison, so cheap. Europe 
has swept her youth into the dragon’s maw of 
militarism and is not inclined to let them escape. 
War is the plaything of governments. They are 
not likely to give it up merely because the playthings 
get broken. 

The favourite place of his uncle Basil had been the 
great estate called iEnothrea, which lay on the south- 
west coast of Helianthus and which was as nearly an 
earthly paradise as nature and art, land and sea, un- 
limited wealth and perfect taste, could make it. Its 
views were incomparable, its treasures were endless, 
its gardens were dreams of loveliness ; and from its 
terraces the Mare Magnum was seen to unroll its 
mighty waters, an azure plain when summer smiled, 
a chaos of storm and wind and mountainous waves, 
and vessels tossed to and fro like cockle-shells in its 
mad riot, when the clouds touched its purple. 

Othyris loved the place with an artist’s passion for 
its beauty, and with the gratitude for its solitude of 
one who would willingly have been a recluse if life 
had so permitted. He would gladly have exiled 
himself for ever to iEnothrea and there have dwelt, 
leaving the clash and clangour of the world to others. 

There are so many of these beautiful places, lying 
in the lap of the world like jewels on a woman’s 
breast, and how seldom — how little — do those who 
possess them care for them ! They may care for them 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


79 


with the pride of possession, care with the vanity of 
wealth, care with the sense of the owner’s omnipo- 
tence, with the appreciation of cultivated taste, with 
the power and pomp of hospitality ; but care for them 
with the love of the heart for the home they do not, 
for they leave them frequently ; when forced to stay 
in them they are soon aweary ; all their glories for 
the sight, all their treasures for the mind, soon pall on 
them. If it were not for the charm of sport which 
their coverts offer, their owners would not sleep as 
often as they do beneath their roofs ! They prefer 
the express-trains, the transatlantic steamers, the 
fashionable spa, the crowded hotel, the gorgeous 
gambling-place, and even other people’s roof-trees 
to their own ! And the grand houses are left to 
solitude and servants, sometimes even are let to 
strangers, sometimes are opened to entertain royalty 
and provide some great prince with whatever sport 
he likes the best; and that is all, until, perchance, 
some day the owner of one of them is embarrassed 
in his affairs, and sells — last ignominy of all ! 

TEnothrea was safe from such a fate ; but it was, 
perforce, visited too little by its lord, who would so 
willingly have passed all his days under its roof. 
The chain of the social, military, filial duties which 
bound Othyris to a routine so hateful to him rendered 
most of his time as heavy to him as the daily labour 
of any poor man could be. Even when on his 
estates he had seldom the luxury of solitude, and as 
he regarded these vast properties as what Tyras 
called in ridicule une charge d' times, the welfare of 
them was to him a grave preoccupation. 

Une charge d'ames! Well, was it not so? 
Was not the sole excuse for power and possession 


8o 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


the use of them in behalf of those who had neither ? 
His family thought such a view of rank and pro- 
perty a monstrous compound of communism and 
conceit, but his conscience held to it. 

Only he could do so little which satisfied himself ; 
he was always stopped in his actions by some of the 
wire fences of law or usage, some of the immovable 
rocks of prejudice or regulation. One day as he 
walked down one of the beautiful avenues at iEno- 
threa, an avenue of great ilex-trees which met in 
impenetrable darkness overhead and were bordered 
by those humble and hardy flowers which he cher- 
ished more than all the glories of horticulture, he 
came across a boy who was employed on the estate. 
He was a pretty lad, with an innocent face and a 
classic form ; the tears were falling down his cheeks, 
and as he stood aside bareheaded to let Othyris 
pass a sob heaved his chest. 

‘ Why, my boy, what ails you ? ’ asked Elim, 
knowing the lad by name and sight. c Come, 
Eusebius, do not be shy of me ; tell me your 
sorrow.' 

The boy looked up wistfully. 

‘ Sir, oh, sir,' he murmured, c I drew a bad 
number yesterday. I must serve ! ’ 

c Ah ! Is that your trouble ? ’ said Othyris, under- 
standing only too well. The boy was bound to go to 
military service; very few, indeed, in the rigour 
of his father’s reign, escaped the iron yoke of 
conscription. 

‘Alas! my poor child, I can do nothing for you. 
It is the law. You must obey it.’ 

Eusebius looked up timidly, his cheeks wet with 
tears. 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


c Oh, sir, oh, my gracious lord/ he murmured, 

c could you not say a word for me? The others 

my brothers are all so little. They earn nothing, 
and my father has been ten months helpless since he 

broke his arm, the bones do not join well ’ 

Then, frightened at having dared to speak so 
much, he broke down into uncontrollable weeping, 
and covered his face with his hands. 

c I know, I know ! ’ said Elim. He knew only too 
well these sorrows that were all over the land, that 
overshadowed the lives of the young from their 
birth, and made bitter as gall the rough, black bread 
eaten by the hearths of the poor. 

f Oh, sir, your Highness is so mighty in power. If 

only — if only ’ murmured the boy, trembling in 

every limb with hope and fear. To him it seemed if 
only the lord of /Enothrea would speak but a word, 
they would let him stay in his little home amongst 
the wide green fields and fragrant woodlands where 
he had been born. 

But Othyris knew otherwise. c They found you 
healthy and well made ? ’ he said. c They have 
passed you as fitted for service ? * 
c Yes, sir.' 

‘ Then, my lad, no power of mine can do anything 
for you/ And he thought bitterly : ‘ It is the best 
fruit that is first plucked; it is the soundest lamb 
that is sent first to the slaughter ! ’ 

c Believe me, my boy/ he said with great gentle- 
ness, ‘if it were possible for me to help you, I would 
do so unasked. But in some things I am entirely 
powerless, and this is one of them. What I can do 
is to see that your family does not suffer in your 
absence, and that your wages are paid to your father 


82 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


during your absence on military service as though 
you were still in these gardens. That is all I can do. 
For the rest, take courage, my child. When you 
come back your place will await you.' 

Then he went on his way down the avenue, and 
his heart was heavy for the weeping lad. Could he 
have had his way none of this young flesh would 
have been eaten by the dragon of war. 

He knew how the enforced military service took 
the elasticity out of youth as the slip and chain cow 
the young dog ; how it made coarse and harsh and 
evil those whom it did not make miserable ; how as it 
hardened the hands and callosities on the feet, so it 
blunted the sensibilities, killed the individuality, and 
reduced the man to a machine. 

This boy was good, simple, dutiful, affectionate, 
ignorant of much of the vice and the sin of cities. 
He would go to the barracks, to the camp, to the 
chamber with its rows of straw or of sacking for 
beds, to the drinking booth and the brothel ; and the 
long forced marches, and the constant gnawing of 
hunger, and the dreary empty hours without either 
work or play, and the coarse and brutal bullying of 
corporal and of comrade would be his portion for ten 
long seasons, and they would make him weary and 
sullen, and he would get drunk whenever he could. 

There was no help for it. Othyris might 
have tried to bear the world upon his shoulders 
with as much chance of success as to change the 
military tyrannies of Europe. 

But as he walked through the soft green shadows 
of the avenue he seemed to hear the dragging of the 
young tired feet through the dust over the stones, the 
heaving of the strained lungs under the heavy leathern 


IV 


HELIANTHUS 


83 


belt&, the pressure of the blood on the valves of the 
heart in the panting march in the noonday sun ; — for 
many a long year the sons of Helianthus had gone 
thus over its earth, under its hills, beside its waters, 
and none had pitied them. The weakest had always 
dropped out of line, and sunk down on the soil, and 
swooned or died there. 

Who had cared ? No one, except the wolves and 
wild dogs who had stolen over the sand-hills, or 
through the cistus bushes, and waited. 


CHAPTER V 


His Excellency Alexander Deliornis, Minister 
of Grace and Justice in Helianthus, had been in early 
life a rag-merchant. He had made a considerable 
fortune in that unsavoury trade, and had entered on 
the not much cleaner trade of politics as one of the 
conservative deputies of his native seaport town, in 
whose harbours innumerable crafts, of all kinds" of 
construction and degrees of tonnage, and coming 
from all manner of countries, brought to his yards 
the rags of innumerable filthy multitudes which, 
when Helianthus was healthy and medical science 
was out of work, could always afford to its professors 
the germs of diseases wherewith to create a useful and 
profitable scare. Deliornis and the medical scientists 
had had many transactions ; his warehouses, become 
in later years vast buildings on the quays, were not 
dear to the goddess Hygeia ; they had not a sweet 
fragrance as of the rose ; indeed, they stank in the 
nostrils of the city, and of those who landed and 
embarked at its port. Hygeia frowned on them ; 
but the high priests of science hurried to the rescue 
with sulphates and sublimates, and they and Deliornis 
agreed that the rags were, if not inodorous, innocuous. 

The rags stank on undisturbed, and the useful 
process of turning them into gold continued 

84 


un- 


CHAP, y 


HELIANTHUS 


85 


molested ; Science, and the Municipality, and Deliornis 
were all satisfied; and if Hygeia continued to pout, 
well, she is, we know, but a minor divinity, and 
Pluto dislikes her, because she thins the crowds that 
pass the Styx. 

Now, the priests and augurs of Mammon are 
numerous in the Senate and Chamber of Helianthus ; 
they may be said to swarm there, like flies in a 
sugar-barrel ; they are to be found even in under- 
secretaryships of State, and now and then one or 
other of them becomes a full-blown Minister, being 
given, of course, some Department of which he knows 
absolutely nothing, this condition being an essential 
rule in the formation of all modern governments. 
Therefore when Deliornis went to the Chamber, he 
found on the benches of his party various friends 
of his friends, and they pushed him with zeal and 
kindness up the rungs of the ladder of political 
success ; for the manner in which he had behaved 
about his warehouses had shown that he possessed 
the making of an ideal public servant. He was 
intelligent, supple, pliant in form, tenacious in fact, 
adroit in speech, unburdened by prejudice or principle. 
He mounted easily from minor to major positions, 
and, whenever the aristocratic and conservative party 
was in power, it could not afford to pass him over 
with neglect. Delicate nostrils quivered sometimes, 
detecting the smell of the rags on his gold-laced 
coat; but that, of course, was mere fancy on the 
part of fastidious people who did not appreciate 
industry. 

Deliornis was King John’s ideal of a Minister, and 
the odour of the rag warehouse did not irritate the 
royal nostrils as it did those of some fastidious persons, 


86 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


who believed that it could not be got rid of by means 
of wearing a broad sash ribbon across the chest, or a 
collar like a prize dog’s at the throat. To the 
King, Deliornis appeared absolutely devoted to the 
royal House; without any initiative, or opinions, 
except such as were suggested from above, i.e. by 
Providence, by Princes, or by the Conservative Press 
- — a triad which is always working in common for the 
general good of nations and humanity. He was 
a fluent speaker, an adroit eater of his own words 
when desirable, and no one was better able to 
float a scheme for public works, or an addition 
to the public debt, and persuade an unwilling 
and sullen Chamber to vote a measure unwelcome 
to the country, but dear to the Palace and the 
Bourse. 

Deliornis, his personality masked by the names of 
relatives, had placed much of his gold obtained from 
rags in international, or national, companies, for the 
most part manufacturers of destructive engines or of 
destructive chemicals. Before his present elevation 
to the rank of a Cabinet Minister, he had been 
Under-Secretary for Naval Affairs; and as the present 
Minister of Marine was a cousin of his own, they 
could, with pleasant agreement, furnish largely all kinds 
of murderous substances to the fleet ; and, indeed, the 
cousin, being a man of talent, provided the maritime 
ports and dockyard depots so largely with these that 
there would be no space for his successors, when they 
came, to stick in a single shell. New inventions were, 
indeed, spoken of, which were being discussed and 
perfected ; but, if it eventually became necessary to 
adopt them, the present enormous stores could 
always be sold to small and distant nations, and fresh 


V 


HELIANTHUS 


87 


purchases made in the name of the Helianthine 
people; for this is statecraft as understood in the 
present days by professional politicians. To buy 
and sell at a profit has passed from the tradesman's 
desk to the statesman’s portfolio, as the first of all 
commandments. 

The cousin, also, having begun life as a clerk at a 
county court at a town in a hill district, and from 
that office having advanced to a chair of political 
economy at an university, knew considerably less 
about the water and the vessels which float thereon 
than any crab which sits in a rock-pool and sees the 
White sails, and the black smoke, pass in the distance. 
Therefore in the true spirit of a monarchical de- 
mocracy he was considered of all men eligible as a 
Minister of Marine; and the battleships built under 
his orders and auspices were certain to topple head 
over heels at the first squall at sea, and sink like a 
stone ; as well-behaved battleships, with a due con- 
sciousness of the anxiety of their constructors to 
begin building anew, always do in all oceans, seas, 
shoals, and channels, in both hemispheres. The 
shark, the octopus, the narwhal, amongst whose 
pleasant company their unhappy crews descend in 
the twilight of deep salt-water, are children in the 
art of acquisition compared to the dual entity of 
Cabinet Minister and public contractor. 

Something of these methods was undoubtedly 
known to King John, though not all, nor even a 
tenth part ; for no monarch, dwelling as monarchs 
do in hothouses, seeing only the prize plants ad- 
mitted there, can match in shrewdness a hard-headed 
tradesman, accustomed to contend with all sorts and 
conditions of people, and possessing a smart tongue. 


88 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


a pliant spine, and a brain accustomed to deals and 
markets and all the variations of speculation. The 
shrewdness of the tradesman is not the finesse of the 
statesman, and is apt to resemble the bull in the china- 
shop when it gets among delicate questions and intri- 
cate diplomacies ; but in its own interests and in its 
own sphere it always remains the master of men who, 
whatever else may be their faults, have the hamper- 
ing scruples of gentlemen. 

The commercial man, the buyer and seller, the 
speculator on ’Change, the manufacturer, the intelli- 
gent dealer in skins, or manures, or chemicals, can- 
not make a safe diplomatist towards the middle, or 
close, of a life spent in other pursuits. Between the 
professional or commercial mind and manner, and the 
diplomatic mind and manner, there flow vast impas- 
sable streams of rose-water and aromatic vinegar. 

But a successful Minister he can make ; we see 
him on the ministerial benches of all the Parliaments 
of the world, and he has one superiority over better- 
bred men : he takes toflunkeyismas naturally as ducks 
to water. His spine, long bent before rich men, 
doubles in two before a royal presence ; and for 
this attribute he is admitted to palaces. For this 
reason Deliornis had become a persona grata at the 
Soleia ; he agreed with everything, he professed to 
see profound reason in what was foolishness, and 
profound insight in what was oblique vision ; he was 
really penetrated by gratitude when he was treated 
with cordiality by his Princes, and felt a thrill of 
pride run down his spine whenever the royal hand 
touched his own in greeting or valediction. In the 
Palace he was considered to be of a right and rever- 
end spirit, of remarkably good manners considering 


y 


HELIANTHUS 


89 


his origin, and of a docile and humble temper, infi- 
nitely rare, and as infinitely becoming. 


Before the year was aged and its first frosts were 
felt on the wide Guthonic plains, King John went, as 
in etiquette bound, to return the visit of his nephew 
Julius, with a pomp and a costliness which contrasted 
unpleasantly, in the minds of those persons who were 
hard to please, with the necessity which the Ex- 
chequer was under, of grinding the souls and bodies 
of the general public between the mill-stones of fiscal 
extortion. A royal progress is still a very costly 
thing, although no cloth of gold and pourpoint of 
satin and collar of lace and corselet of jewels are worn, 
although all the stately and decorative figures of old 
are represented by figures totally undistinguishable, 
when travelling, from commercial clerks or shop- 
assistants out for a holiday at any seaside or river- 
side haunt. John of Gunderode, in a drab-coloured 
great coat and a tweed travelling cap, walked through 
the banks of palms and flowers with which the rail- 
way station of the northern line was decorated, and 
over the carpet which it is etiquette to spread 
wherever royal feet may tread ; said a few words un- 
graciously with his Ministers, with the Prefect, the 
Syndic, and other big officials ; then gave them two 
fingers in farewell, and stepped into his saloon-car- 
riage, accompanied by his son Idumaea, and lighted a 
huge cheroot. 

Every device which modern luxury could devise 
had been lavished on the royal train. Its upholstery 
was fit for a young beauty’s boudoir, well-known 
artists had painted its panels with charming groups, 
sculptors had designed its caryatides and its ceilings, 


9 ° 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


its temperature was carefully regulated, and its atmo- 
sphere was delicately tinted to a soft rose hue ; and 
King John smoked and slept and snored, and ate 
and drank, and was borne through meridional and 
central Europe as swiftly and agreeably as though 
he were a necromancer sailing through the air on a 
magic carpet. 

His Excellency Alexander Deliornis had been 
chosen to accompany the King on this official visit, 
and he was exceedingly elated ; he would, he knew, 
get some great Order from the Emperor, and the 
visit would set him firmly in his ministerial saddle, 
on which he felt at times the unsteadiness of a man 
who has been sent to the riding-school too late in life. 

The Prime Minister, Kantakuzene, ought to have 
gone, and ought to have got the Order, but his re- 
publican antecedents made him a person disagreeable 
to the Emperor of the Guthones ; whereas Deliornis, 
although he had sold rags, had never shown any 
tenderness to the classes by whom rags are worn. 
Like their rags, they stank in his nostrils. 

With a stephanotis in his buttonhole, and a grati- 
fied smile upon his round, red, full face, the chiffonnier 
en gros , as Tyras called him, awaited his sovereign 
on the station platform, and followed him with 
nimble humility into the royal carriage. These are 
the hours in a politician’s life which compensate to 
him for all the browbeating in Parliament, the 
heckling in the Cabinet, the endless stream of appli- 
cants pouring in and out of his antechamber, the 
turning of his coat in the sight of the public, the in- 
cessant existence of attack and retreat, of defence 
and defiance, of asseveration and apology, which 
make up a political career in Helianthus. 


V 


HELIANTHUS 


9i 


Probably no one enjoys ministerial greatness so 
thoroughly as an arrive who has been very low down 
in the social scale. All the fuss and form and cere- 
mony attendant on it bore the aristocrat, offend the 
taste of the gentleman, but delight the newly arrived ; 
the bowing magistrates, the robed and gilded mayors, 
the staring crowds, the resounding bands, the verbose 
greetings, the decorated platforms, the gigantic feasts, 

— all these enchant the man who has risen from the 
office-stool to the Cabinet Council ; to no other is 
the red carpet so roseate, or the broad breast-ribbon 
so dear, or the roar of the cheering such heavenly 
music. 

The royal train had cost some three million of 
francs ; each voyage which it made cost another million ; 
and King John's visit to the empire of his nephew 
would cost several further millions; and both in his 
own country and in that of Julius, bundles of cut grass 
and a handful of hens' eggs were taxed at all the 
town gates, and both peoples paid a hearth tax, though 
many of their hearths were cold. What had the cost 
of his train, and the tax at the gates, or the tax on 
the hearths, to do one with another, each of these 
potentates would have asked in amazement if any one 
had had the hardihood to draw in his hearing such 
an insufferable comparison. 

But from the insolence of such parallels monarchs 
are carefully screened. 

Royal visits have this disadvantage, that if for 
any cause — a hostile Press, a political rancour, or 
an individual apprehension on the part of the guest 

— the exchange of these courtesies be considered un- 
wise or ill-timed, their abandonment causes friction, 
and creates bad feelings between the nations involved, 


92 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


even as cards not returned, or invitations not accepted, 
make enemies in society of those who hitherto have 
been on terms of amity. It is easy to produce anger ; 
it is difficult to allay it; and to efface the recollection 
of it is almost impossible, even with that giddy thing 
— a national susceptibility. The kisses of Henry and 
Francis on the Field of the Cloth of Gold were soon 
forgotten ; the loss of Calais and the day of Pavia 
rankled in Tudor and in Valois souls through 
centuries. 

The emotions of nations are like mercury in a 
glass tube : they rise and fall with incredible rapidity. 
Both finance and journalism want the quicksilver to 
dance up and down, or their own occupation would 
be gone ; so the cold hand or the hot hand presses 
the tube by turns. Every one wants the temper- 
ature which suits himself, and very naturally does 
his best to produce it. 

King John slept and smoked, lunched and dined, 
bathed and dressed, and was whirled through prov- 
inces and countries with scarcely perceptible move- 
ment though lightning-like rapidity. Now and then 
he looked out of a window, and saw long lines of dark, 
forlorn figures stooping over dark, stony lands, or 
groups of factories under clouds of black and lurid 
smoke, or sluggish grey canals with barges creeping 
slowly through their slime ; but they had no interest 
for him. The only sight which interested him 
was when in a railway siding, waiting for his train 
to pass, he saw a military train close packed with 
soldiers and horses, or a crowd of conscripts huddled 
together on a station platform, or a squadron of 
cavalry trotting smartly over the dust of a country 
road. 


V 


HELIANTHUS 


93 


They were the soldiers, the horses, the con- 
scripts, the cavalry, of the various States which 
acknowledged the suzerainty of his beloved nephew 
and ally — the nephew of whom he was never sure, 
the ally who would one day swallow up him and his, 
if it were possible to do so, by the one law of which 
he would be unable to dispute the justice : the law 
of superior strength. 

When the monarch entered into the especial 
dominions of the Lillienstauffen he found the deepest 
interest in every mile of the iron way. It was his 
ideal, this State, or conglomeration of States, in which 
militarism was the law of national life, and mere babes 
were drilled in the infant schools. It was a model 
country in his eyes ; its stations were all designed to 
be used for defence if needed ; its churches were all 
loopholed to be used for artillery if wanted; lines of 
circumvallation and fortification cut across its woods 
and pastures, and surrounded its old historic towns ; 
in all its cities, large and small, there were the blare 
of trumpets, the beat of drums, the clash of arms, 
the roll of caissons ; the empire of Julius was, before 
all else, a military country. A cursory glance 
showed that fact even to any civilian ; to a military 
scientist like John of Gunderode it revealed its 
imposing preparations for war in a thousand ways. 

Its roads were all made to serve for the passage 
of troops ; its bridges over rail and river were all 
built for military use ; in every little village there 
were drilling, and trumpeting, and butt shooting; 
every factory, mill, and warehouse, every group of 
farm buildings and school tenements, had its possible 
utility in war marked upon ordnance maps. He 
knew that on the frontiers of the Guthonic empire 


94 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


every preparation for offensive and defensive warfare 
was carefully made, and he viewed with admiration 
the immense barracks, and the gigantic fortifica- 
tions, which studded the land like couchant herds 
of mammoths. 

Many admirers praised Julius for his self-denial in 
keeping his sword sheathed, and his armed host in 
unmobilised peacefulness ; but, in truth, he did not 
go to war because he was not by any means sure of 
his allies, or certain that his friends would not at the 
first opportunity become his enemies. Indeed, of the 
latter fact he was quite sure, and it was for that 
which he prepared. 

No dominions in the world were so exclusively 
dedicated to the possibilities of war as those of 
Julius. Everything, and every creature, in it was 
consecrated to preparations for success abroad and 
at home against foreign foes or native agitators. 
The nation ate, slept, worked, lived, in a coat of 
mail, like a man-at-arms of old. 

It was thus that the King would have made 
Helianthus had he but had his way and an un- 
restricted exchequer. He would have known how 
to value and to use a dominion like this of his 
nephew, a nation which allowed itself to be kept ready 
equipped for war aggression of any kind, and motion- 
less under all maltreatment by its ruler, like the set 
of tin soldiers which lie side by side in their wooden 
box till they are taken out and put in line by the 
hand which disposes of them. 

Helianthus was, on the contrary, a country full of 
legend ; of self-will, of vague remembrance of a great 
past, remote but glorious ; of irritated discontent with 
the meagre results of its recent achievements ; it 


V 


HELIANTHUS 


95 


liked its shirt-sleeves, its songs, its bare feet on the 
hot turf, its dagger in its sash, its free chatter on the 
stone bench, its wild dance, when the empty stomach 
jumped in the air and the hunger of it was forgotten 
in caper and caress, as the maidens gambolled in the 
shadows like fawns and kids, while the moon shone 
down between the vine leaves. The Helianthines 
were the last people in the world to please a 
monarch soaked in, and encrusted by, militarism as 
a salted fish is saturated with brine. He could not 
run a poker down their backs ; he could not make 
them mute, rigid, mechanical, tight-buttoned, belted, 
gloved, booted, with eyes fixed, and feet moved like 
clockwork ; they were only awkward and grotesque 
in that drilled state ; put the wild goat in harness, 
where are its mountain agility and grace ? 

At the capital city of his empire, Julius, in the 
uniform of the 6th Helianthine Cuirassiers (for to 
wear each other’s uniforms is a delicate mutual com- 
pliment, invented by themselves, which sovereigns 
never neglect to observe), met him at the central 
station, and embraced him on both cheeks, and 
greeted with equal effusion the young Count of 
Idumaea, whilst his tallest and stoutest giants in 
towering fur shakoes and glittering corselets made a 
double living palisade between which his guests 
passed to their carriages. John of Gunderode had 
been unable to show him any such giants as those, 
and Julius was as proud of them as, in the nursery, 
a child is proud of having a bigger Noah’s ark or 
taller rocking-horse than any that a small child- 
visitor possesses at home. 

He also shook hands cordially with Deliornis, on 
whose breast he knew that he would have to place 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


on the morrow the great Order of the Eland. The 
rags of the Minister’s past stank in the nostrils of 
Julius ; but he ignored them with admirable phi- 
losophy. Deliornis was a useful creature to him at 
the head of foreign affairs in Helios. 

c My beloved uncle and revered ally/ Julius called 
his guest at the banquet-table of that day ; but he 
took care that the entire course of his revered ally’s 
visit should be a sequence of carefully calculated 
mortifications. The thorns were all masked by the 
roses, but they were sharp. The King felt, as his 
reverential nephew intended him to feel, that there 
are alliances which closely resemble vassalage, and 
that Helianthus would never be permitted to become 
wholly independent of the empire of the Guthones. 

He was shown, moreover, how, beside this won- 
derfully accurate military machinery, so perfect in 
ail its parts, so polished in all its intricacies, so en- 
tirely under command, so unfailingly ready in any 
season and at every hour, his own army, which he 
had left behind him between the mountains of 
Rhaetia and the Mare Magnum, was but an awk- 
ward, rusty, bruised, and halting engine, uncertain in 
movement and possibly incapable in emergency. 

The ropes of fresh laurel swung from one electric 
lamp to another ; the national colours and the na- 
tional flowers of the two nations were displayed 
everywhere, from triumphal arches to buttonholes ; 
there was all that fictitious enthusiasm which is so 
easily begotten by the suggestion of the Press and 
the pressure of the police ; martial music resounded 
everywhere, and the preachers, who are never mute 
in the land of the Guthones, preached militant dis- 
courses from Christian texts. All was love and 


V 


HELIANTHUS 


97 


unity, readiness for war and solidarity in menace ; 
and the newspapers of the world were jubilantly ex- 
cited, or mournfully envious, according to their 
geographical situation. 

Why serious persons of mature age, and with the 
cares of public affairs upon them, should be supposed 
to require amusements and decorations half-childish, 
half-barbaric ; why they should be supposed to be 
pleased by gilt pennons, artificial wreaths, clusters 
of lights imitating bunches of grapes, or statues of 
plaster draped in silks and satins, it would be diffi- 
cult for any one to explain ; but these things are the 
inevitable accompaniment of all visits by the ruler 
of one country to the capital of another, just as the 
sale of cheap toys and gingerbread is the accompani- 
ment of every village fair. 

The prisons are filled with suspected people 
crammed into them as a measure of precaution. In 
the poor quarters there are hunger, darkness, sick- 
ness, famine, misery. The thieves laugh at the law and 
pillage the crowds ; the substratum of the city is still 
filth, famine, iniquity, vice, suffering ; but the tinsel 
and the gilding and the banners, and the clusters of 
electric lights, are all there, and are all that visitors 
and the reporters see. The beautiful horses prance 
and plunge; the postillions crack their ribboned 
whips ; the massed bands play, the bells vibrate in 
the air, the cannon boom, and the Powers that Be 
are delighted, like little boys on a roundabout, with 
all the noise and stir, and gaudy colour, and gilded 
pasteboard. And if they want a deeper note in the 
comic opera, is not the Archbishop of the City there 
to assure them that they have immortal souls, and 
are the anointed Vice-Regents of Christ? 


9 8 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


Whether the scene be in Gallia, or Guthonia, or 
Candor, or Helianthus, or the empire of the Septen- 
triones, the spectacle is always the same ; more 
splendid in some, more tawdry in others ; more cor- 
dial or more conventional ; more based on friendship 
here, or more moved there by fear ; but in substance 
it is always the same. It serves to dazzle the people ; 
to daunt them also by the military display which al- 
ways accompanies it ; and to warn the guest. £ See, 
my beloved brother-monarch/ says each of those 
who prepare the spectacle, c I can be the best of 
friends, but I can be also the nastiest of foes.’ And each 
royal visitor, smiling, kissing, making pretty speeches, 
understands what the welcome to him means. 

But uneasy lies the head which wears a crown 
overshadowed by the superior size of another crown; 
and when night fell, John of Gunderode slept ill, 
although he had the honour of reposing on the same 
couch which had once been pressed by the revered 
limbs of the great Gunther of Lillienstauffen, famous 
as the Ruler of the Iron Hand. 

The iron entered into the soul of King John with 
everything he saw and heard in the Guthonic capital. 
The perfection of all routine ; the precision of every 
movement ; the exactitude of every detail ; the 
matchless manner in which all the interests of the 
nation were subordinated to the military interest ; 
the perpetual saluting ; the manner of course with 
which the officer treated the civilian as a mixture of 
ape and ass, jostled him off the curbstone, kicked 
him off the tram-car, upset him off a chair at a cafe, 
and spitted him with a sword as a naturalist runs a 
pin through an insect — all this was hopelessly un- 
attainable in Helianthus. The way in which Julius 


V 


HELIANTHUS 


99 


swept through the street-crowds on his motor-car as 
Juggernaut rolls over prostrate multitudes could not 
have been imitated by his uncle in Helios, where 
the people, timid and submissive in much, had in 
them old instincts of free and heroic races which it 
was dangerous to risk arousing. The aspect of the 
capital of Julius, which resembled a huge brick 
barracks, lent itself to an admixture of prison and 
exercising-ground to which the capital of Helianthus 
could no more attain than a flower-garden can look 
like a penitentiary. The very light in Helios laughed 
like a saucy child, smiled like a happy maiden ; 
whereas the capital of the Guthones was a vast mass 
of stone and brick and iron, with cold mists sweep- 
ing over it from distant seas that were frozen half 
the year and from plains surrounding it which were 
scorched like deserts the other half; and its popula- 
tion was armed and drilled and thrashed and put in 
irons whenever their rulers desired. But it was the 
ideal State of John of Gunderode, and he laboured 
incessantly to make his own realm resemble it ; but 
he had inferior material to work on, and he felt the 
inferiority bitterly. The Helianthines had been a 
polished, learned, and artistic race when the Guthones 
had been little more than orang-utangs in their fir 
forests and their airy plains, wearing the skins of 
wild beasts they killed and eating their flesh ; but now 
the former was a worn-out race in the eyes of the 
man who ruled over them, and the latter were in his 
esteem the perfection of drilled, armed, and scientifi- 
cally educated humanity. But he could no more 
make a Helianthine into a Guthone than he could 
make a lyre-bird into a barn-door fowl ; and the im- 
possibility made him savage. 


CHAPTER VI 

On his return to his capital, King John, inspired by 
his nephew, sent the Crown Prince on a visit of State 
to a part of his dominions named in the pages of 
Herodotus, as in the columns of Baedeker ; the most 
ancient, poetic, unaltered, and lovely of all the various 
outlying portions of Helianthus. It consists of a 
hundred isles, or more : some large, some small, some 
inhabited, some left solely to the birds of sea and 
land, to the hares, the wild cats, the squirrels, the 
moles, the porcupines ; some few are rocky and 
barren crags, but almost all are densely wooded 
and extremely beautiful and romantic. To scholars 
they are known by their ancient name, the Isles of 
Adonis, and in much they remain untouched since 
the days of the worship of Aphrodite. They form a 
series of sentinels between the mainland and the open 
sea ; but they also constitute a danger to the country, 
because they are coveted by all neighbouring nations 
and have been captured and retaken many a time since 
the Persian, the Carthaginian, the Ottoman fleets 
sailed through their channels. The visit to them of 
the Heir- Apparent was a State visit, designed to show 
the interest which the Crown and Cabinet took in 
these outlying but precious possessions. But there 
were two motives beneath this : one was the desire 


IOO 


CHAP. VI 


HELIANTHUS 


IOI 


to know in what degree, for defence or defiance, they 
were already prepared; the other was to ascertain 
their possible value for speculation. The first mis- 
sion, open and announced, was that of the Heir- 
Apparent ; the second, only spoken of sub rosa , was 
that of the Minister of Marine who accompanied 
him ; the Minister who was a cousin of Deliornis. 
Theo had a militant soul, not a commercial one ; 
and he was, after his own narrow and vain fashion, 
an honest man. The King was more modern than 
he in this respect. 

Elim, who knew well these waters and these isles, 
would have been far more popular and decorative, 
had he been sent on such an errand. But the King 
knew the affection which the maritime population 
everywhere in Helianthus felt for his second son, who 
loved the sea and seafaring men, and admired these 
islanders, who were at once so classic and so primitive. 

To give them such a chance of offering their 
favourite a public ovation was the last thing in the 
monarch’s thoughts. He knew that Theo was 
disliked ; was ungracious, stiff-necked, and harsh ; 
but as he himself was so likewise, he did not perceive 
the mischief these defects might do. Monarchs and 
princes who were amiable and smiling on public 
occasions, seemed to him like cabmen who should 
give their horses sugar instead of the whip. The 
passage in history which seemed to him the most 
discreditable was that which records how Louis 
Quatorze took off his plumed hat to his gardener. 
Theo was not likely to err by any similar excess of 
urbanity. 

The Crown Prince, therefore, was not the man for 
this kind of errand ; he was not gracious or good- 


102 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


natured ; his personality was not attractive ; he had 
his father’s harsh and hard expression, and the gen- 
eral aspect of a major of an infantry regiment; he 
put more militarism into a frock coat and a tall hat 
than any other man into a full-dress uniform. 

The archipelago was little altered since the days 
when the altars of Venus had risen amongst the 
myrtle and oleanders. It was a feast of beauty for 
the eyes, of perfume for the nostrils ; the islets seemed 
to float on the waves as swans’ nests on the sedges ; 
the rose of dawn bathed them in its warmth and 
light ; a poet should have reigned there, a Catullus 
or a Shelley should have dreamed his life away in its 
paradise ; on their rocks and in their shallows the 
sea-flowers of the dianthus and the gemmae shone 
like jewels, and the white flowers of the acacias 
dropped into the white surf of its breakers. To 
change the sparkling sand into coal dust and slag ; 
to fell the acacias, the laburnums, the araucarias, the 
ilexes to feed the ever-open maws of factory furnaces ; 
to make the heavy columns of black smoke obscure 
the atmosphere and hide from view the radiant 
horizon — this seemed to the Crown Prince and those 
of his views and epoch an utilitarian work of the 
first and most worthy order. It would take much 
time, no doubt, and an enormous expenditure of 
money, but then what a noble work it would be — 
almost equal to the black country of Candor or to 
the oil regions of the great vast West ! The isles 
were an ode of Anacreon ; they should become a 
conspicuous feature in the Share List. 

The Crown Prince saw a great mercantile centre 
planted like a Buddha amongst avarice, amid its own 
clouds of dust and smoke ; and the trees would burn 


VI 


HELIANTHUS 


103 


in the ovens, and the waters be oily and greasy and 
black, and the people would sweat and suffer just as 
in the most prosperous regions of the new world- 
Theo, though a prince, was extremely modern ; for 
he was a man of his time. He cared nothing for the 
flamingo poised like a rose and white lily amongst 
the reeds ; or for the honeysuckle and clematis 
throwing graceful sprays from tree to tree ; or for the 
radiant fish darting through the translucent waters of 
the rock-pools ; or for the nude and gleeful children 
leaping through the foam, and plunging headlong 
down the roaring breakers. Here was a multitude 
of islets, which artists admired and historians talked 
of, but which otherwise had no more value than the 
mesembryanthemum on its ledge of surf-washed 
rock. What could be more patriotic than to change 
it into an ocean Manchester, a nautical Pittsburg? 
He was by no means an imaginative man, but as his 
steam-pinnace raced between the isles, he instinc- 
tively began to compose the opening lines of a 
prospectus. 

Elim would have been in a congenial atmosphere in 
these isles; he would have been far more intelligent, 
far more sympathetic, far more distinguished ; but a 
second son has not the same prestige as the Heir- 
Apparent, and his already widespread popularity, 
joined as it was to his extreme and unorthodox 
opinions, made him unsafe in the King’s estimation. 
Who knew what he would not say to the people of 
the isles, well known as those people had been for 
many ages for their maritime daring, for their in- 
subordinate disposition, and, of later times, for their 
conspicuous part in the War of Independence? 
Theo, on the contrary, stamped out free and indi- 


104 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


vidual opinions wherever he went, as a mastiff may 
stamp on glow-worms. 

For the King had not wanted an Anacreontic or 
Tibullian ode ; he had wanted a report for a parlia- 
mentary committee, a cut-and-dried array of figures 
for a future Board of Green Cloth, and these he ob- 
tained from his Heir- Apparent, though it hurt the 
conscience of the Crown Prince to limit himself to 
arithmetic, and nautical mathematics, and statements 
of soundings, and statistics of exports, without ex- 
pressing the sense of shame which he felt that any 
part of his father’s dominions should be in so morally 
benighted yet singularly contented a state. 

King John, when it was expedient, could dismiss 
morality as an unimportant item. To his eldest 
son morality always ranked before anything else — 
except indeed privilege, and the Brahminic holiness 
of his caste. 

But he was sent to cement unity, and to uphold 
prestige, with an imposing escort of men-of-war. 
The cost to the country of the cruise would be con- 
siderable, but no one thought about that ; even if the 
expenditure were large, it would be easily covered by 
an extra fraction upon hemp or flax, or upon corn or 
maize or other article of food chiefly used by the poor. 
Additional taxation was easy in Helianthus to those 
who imposed the taxes ; it was based, as indeed it is 
in all countries, on two simple rules : where the shoe 
pinches already, pinch again, and squeeze those 
throats which are already safely aphonic. A great 
deal may be added to the Exchequer by adhering to 
these simple rules ; there is no disturbance, and 
the superior classes are left unruffled. And in all 
countries it is these classes which most require to be 


VI 


HELIANTHUS 


105 


conciliated ; the classes which a government cannot 
shoot, cannot put in the lock-up, cannot charge with 
seditious conduct, cannot send to pick oakum or 
make wooden pegs, but which, on the other hand, can 
rising from their dinner-tables and feeling pleasantly 
warmed with good wines, turn out the Ministry. 

So the Crown Prince sped on his way, quite sure 
that the bill for his wanderings would be paid with- 
out any unseemly squabbling over it in either House; 

and Tyras drew caricatures of him as droll as any- 
thing ever drawn by Caran d’Ache. Meantime 
Europe discussed excitedly the probabilities that a 
cession of some of the isles was intended to some 
other Power, or else that some other isles lying 
outside the. archipelago were to be annexed and 
included in it ; or else that it was intended to cede 
the whole archipelago to an international syndicate, 
which would, work the mines, fell the forests, clear 
the flowery wilderness, build towns of corrugated iron, 
make heaps of slag and cinders where now orchids 
bloomed and wild camelias towered, and do the 
general work of international syndicates everywhere. 

The Crown Prince, however, did not go upon 
such an errand, though the vision of such a syndi- 
cate for the future certainly floated seductively before 
the minds of the King and his Ministers. He went 
harmlessly on an errand of what is called in vulgar 
English, brag: a perfectly natural and innocent 
flourish of trumpets in the name and the interests of 
the nation, such as good and patriotic princes are 
sent upon by their government in all States of the 
world, gathering popularity and sowing prestige. 

# He took his departure from the harbour of Helios 
with much display of bunting, roar of powder, ap- 


IO 6 HELIANTHUS chap. 

plause of loafing crowds; he was on board the largest 
royal steam-yacht, and was accompanied by various 
ships of war, from the huge and hideous Polyphemus 
to the last new miniature destroyer, Hecate . 

The Hundred Isles, the Isles of Adonis, were in 
the south-eastern waters of the Mare Magnum, and 
their population was oriental in its habits rather than 
European; the Argonauts must have threaded their 
labyrinth, and Theseus have sailed on their waters ; 
the Liberalia must have been held on their golden 
sands, and the Floralia under their clematis-hung 
trees. It was a shocking blemish to the State in 
Theo’s eyes that there should be such a set of semi- 
savages on the coast of Helianthus. That they were 
admirably made, classically graceful, naturally gay 
as young dogs, and as good-natured, and that they 
had probably retained unchanged the morals and the 
manners of twice a thousand years before, was noth- 
ing in the estimation of their royal visitor, except a 
lamentable survival of indecent paganism. They re- 
volted him, as did nude statues in the galleries of 
the Soleia or the museums of the city. 

The people of the Hundred Isles certainly did 
not lend themselves very harmoniously to the spec- 
tacle; on most of the beautiful, sea-rocked, separate 
worlds of fruit and flower and fern, of silver sand, 
and deep, soft shadows, and red rocks, and creeks 
changeful in hue as opals, the people were half-bar- 
baric, wholly classic still, mirthful, wild, and ignorant 
of all outside their isolated homes; lithe, handsome, 
brown, half-naked, as little fed as clothed, but well- 
grown and healthy from the freshness of the air, the 
freedom of their lives, and the tonic of the salt water 
in which half their time was spent. The inhabitants 


VI 


HELIANTHUS 


107 


of the isles could never be thoroughly broken in to 
military discipline. Their youths were sent by force 
to the navy, where they made brave sailors, but 
were restive under coercion, and passed half their 
time in chains. 

These semi-nude, amphibious sons of the surf and 
the sand were a race that shocked Theo in his inner- 
most feelings of propriety and correctness. But an 
official posse of decorators had preceded him, as the 
upholsterer and the florist and the manager prepare a 
royal box at the Opera House before some great gala 
visit of crowned heads. Persons from the larger isles, 
which were somewhat more civilised, were temporarily 
deported to the smaller isles to leaven their barbarism ; 
deputations were formed on the approved modern 
model, addresses composed and presented, presents 
prepared and received, the leaven from the mainland 
was sedulously worked into the original, oceanic, 
primitive conditions ; great care was taken that the 
young mothers with children at boldly-bared breasts, 
that the little lads and lasses dancing naked in the 
surf, that the men leaping and wrestling like statues 
of pale bronze, unchanged in shape and habit since 
the days of Phidias, should be kept to the green 
gloom of their native woods, and all, or almost all, 
that the Crown Prince should see should be the 
orthodox broadcloth, the modern trouser, the silk 
hat, the shaven chin, the starched shirt, the national 
flag, the striped marquee, the consecrated red carpet, 
— everything, indeed, that royal personages seem to 
create with their breath wherever they go, as the 
insignia of civilisation, and will expect to find ready 
for them likewise in the moon if a flying-machine 
ever take them there. 


io8 HELIANTHUS chap. 

Of the true isles and life of the islanders Theo 
was allowed to see but little. But what he did really 
see for himself, with his sharp soldier’s eyes, and 
without instruction from any one, in addition to 
the heathenish habits which horrified him, was that 
the Hundred Isles were almost utterly defenceless: 
that they constituted an ever-open gate, through 
which any enemy could pass into the home waters 
of Helianthus, and assail her fertile and accessible 
southern mainland, which had scarcely changed since 
two thousand years before. 

Of course a portion of the fleet always guarded 
this channel, where the last of the isles marked the 
juncture of the archipelago with the high seas. 
But Theo had a soldier’s incredulity as to the use 
and power of a fleet, unsupported by land forces, to 
protect a country from invasion ; and he concluded 
at once that what was needed was a line of sea-walls, 
and strong additional fortifications at intervals, in 
various places, heavily armoured and armed, which 
should be able to prevent any seizure by a coup de main 
of the most distant isles. He came also to the con- 
clusion that all the maps and plans of the archipelago 
already existing in the War Office and the Admiralty 
in Helios were defective and misleading. He returned 
to the capital with the determination to make the 
nation spend many millions on the necessary works 
of survey and defence ; and the King was never averse 
to expenditure, if he himself were not asked to con- 
tribute to it. 

The fortifications of the archipelago became im- 
mediately the burning question of the day. All the 
military and conservative party sided with the Crown 
Prince, and of course all the radical and socialistic 


VI 


HELIANTHUS 


109 


party rushed into opposition of the project; neither 
party wasting either time or trouble in looking into 
the question as it stood on its own merits. This is 
the characteristic modern fashion of dealing with all 
public problems ; and it has at least simplicity to 
recommend it. Does X. favour a project ? That is 
enough. X. X. immediately goes against it, tooth 
and nail. Does X. oppose it? Then, incontinently, 
X. X. proclaims that it is the one measure imperatively 
necessary to the national existence. This is called, 
in monarchies, ‘Government by Parliamentary Repre- 
sentation,’ and in republics is entitled c Government 
by the Will of the People.’ Both these names sound 
nicely ; but what they describe is not quite so nice as 
to be entirely satisfactory to students of modern 
history. Nor will they be so to the Gibbons, 
Tocquevilles, and Rankes of the future, who may 
very possibly irreverently call it government by 
interest, caste, temper, envy, greed, hatred, and all 
uncharitableness ; government, indeed, by the purse 
and the passions of humanity, instead of by its reason 
and its justice. 

The project of the fortifications had one result 
which was good, and one result which was either 
good or bad according to the views of those who 
judged it. The first was that the scheme occupied 
the Crown Prince to the temporary exclusion of all 
other interests ; the second was that it made the 
Ministry unpopular. Theo ceased temporarily to 
worry the life out of his aides-de-camp and his 
tormented colonels, and his poor soldiers slept in 
comfort for a time in their barracks, their dormitories 
being for once in a while undisturbed by bugle-calls 
of alarm in the small hours of the night ; and the 


I IO 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


Ministry, being forced, to please the King, to prepare 
and put forward plans which proposed the expendi- 
ture of several trillions of francs, to be necessarily 
followed by additional taxation, played its best cards 
into the hands of vigilant and merciless opponents, 
and lost them. For the best card of the Prime 
Minister, Kantakuzene, was that which, though in 
part mere policy, was also in part a genuine desire 
in him to better the conditions and lighten the 
burdens of the poor of his nation. The general 
belief that he was sincere in this had made him 
popular with the people, even with those sections 
which condemned him as a turn-coat, and con- 
sidered that, in view of his earlier life and pro- 
fessions of faith, he should never have become a 
Minister of the Crown. But when he and his 
Cabinet fathered so monstrous a proposal of ex- 
penditure as the sea and island fortifications, his best 
friends were aghast, and his defeat was assured. 

Viewed merely from a technical point of view, the 
project was sound. In an epoch when fair-faced Peace 
sinks under the weight of her armour, and scowls like 
a Medusa at her neighbours, it is undoubtedly wise for 
a nation to arm everywhere and in every way. No 
one can be the first to disarm, under penalty of being 
the first to fall ; or, at least, such is the opinion alike 
of soldiers and of sages, and of those youngest sons 
of Athena, newspaper correspondents. 

There was also not a doubt that the sea-washed 
chain of the Hundred Isles was, as it had been for so 
many centuries, one of the fairest and most attractive 
portions of the globe, and as a possession was desired 
by all. Hitherto, indeed, precisely because it was 
coveted by all, it had been safe from any one ravisher 


VI 


HELIANTHUS 


nr 


in especial. They all cried c Hands off!’ to each 
other ; and it was felt that the terrible bugbear and 
Jack-in-the-Box, called an European war, would 
inevitably follow any attempt on the part of any 
single Power to trouble the peace of the Helianthine 
Archipelago. But who could say how long this 
suspension of hostilities might last ? 

c I am always reluctant to give any expression of 
my views on subjects which are before Parliament/ 
said Othyris to a friend, who pressed him to give his 
opinion on the matter, c and this is in especial my 
eldest brother's project. But I fear that we are do- 
ing what every nation does at this time of the world’s 
history — trusting for defence to money, stone, metal, 
and projectiles, whilst we enfeeble the temper and 
the spirit of the people without whom those defences 
are useless. It is impossible that you can incessantly 
hustle and worry and unnerve a populace with in- 
numerable by-laws, fines, threats, and taxes, and 
leave them a spirited and dauntless community. 
The tyrannical minutiae of modern government, 
of municipal activity, of police supervision, of 
medical regulations, of house-to-house espionage, 
of perpetual interrogation, investigation, and inter- 
ference, must cow a populace ; its effect is the same 
on men as that of the muzzle on dogs. Until now 
the population of the isles has been let alone in 
a great measure. They have been allowed to rule 
themselves to a large extent, taxation and conscrip- 
tion apart. They are primitive, not ungentle, but 
wild and little touched by the life and laws of the 
mainland. They form the best aegis to the archi- 
pelago. I do not think they will willingly be shut 
up within sea-walls and fortresses, or easily be forced 


I 12 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


to congregate in little walled coast towns. Their 
origin is, I believe, Phoenician. They are children 
of the sun, and the waves, and the storm. They 
shout and chant as they ride the white horses of the 
surf. They dive down to the coral reefs, and climb 
the stems of the palms to the crowns. They would 
fight till the sea ran red against invading foes ; but 
shut up behind mortised blocks of stone they will 
grow either sullen and savage, or anaemic and tuber- 
culous. My brother sees his fortifications and 
nothing else ; but the men who come behind him, 
to carry out his plans, see their mills, their mines, 
their million-volt power-stations, their huge barracks 
full of workers grinding gold for them ; and as behind 
the soldier struts the engineer, so behind the engi- 
neer stalks the syndicate, and the archipelago will be- 
come what Bombay has become — one vast factory. 
My brother is entirely sincere, he is perfectly single- 
minded ; he would no more carry two minds than 
he would wear two sabres. But those behind him 
are neither simple-minded nor single-minded, and 
they use him to their own ends. They have one 
sole intention — to make money; and he is one of 
the mints in which they coin it. He has no idea 
whatever that he is being used as a mere tool by pro- 
jectors, contractors, financiers, and all the rest of 
the gang : he honestly believes that he is doing a 
patriotic act, and endeavouring to strengthen the 
country where she is weakest and most vulnerable. 
He looks forward to an honest and useful expenditure 
of subscriptions voluntarily given by the nation. He 
does not as yet imagine, and (if he ever comes to 
know it) he will never admit, that he will be only 
made the decorative handle to a gigantic job.’ 


VI 


HELIANTHUS 


IJ 3 


The Crown Prince was, indeed, primarily occupied 
with the moral side of the question, being a person 
to whom moral questions were, as they were to his 
cousin Julius, directly delegated by Heavenly Powers 
for observation and enforcement upon the nation. 
But almost equally precious and important to him 
was the necessity of losing no time in putting in a 
state of defence these romantic isles and islets which 
ran out into the open sea like children racing in the 
waves. He really scarcely knew which was the more 
horrible of the two, the open sensuality of the people, 
or the open peril of these undefended and scattered 
places on which they dwelt. He, indeed, on his 
return to the capital, did not any longer conceal the 
horror which he had felt at the moral condition of 
the islands ; however discreetly it had been veiled 
from him, he had seen much which seemed to him 
the nudest paganism. 

c Their sexual intercourse is often promiscuous/ 
he said, in an awed whisper of horror, when he re- 
turned to the capital. 

‘ And our houses of ill-fame/ said Othyris, c what 
are they ? * 

Theo did not reply. 

There were many offences in his generation, in his 
country, in his barracks, in his military colleges, 
which he could neither alter nor chastise, and which 
he preferred to ignore. 

The greatest martinet must be content to ignore 
sometimes ; he cannot always be sitting on court- 
martial. 

Whitewash, religion, and legal marriage appeared 
to him to be urgently required in these sea-rocked 
nests of immorality. The long, low, wooden houses, 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


I I 4 

thatched with sea-rushes, and covered by creepers, 
were hotbeds of vice and of sin in his eyes. Square 
sanitary dwellings, built of brick and stuccoed, roofed 
by tiles or slates, with fire-proof floors, patent 
kitcheners, sinks, safes, and water-pipes, with the 
surrounding trees well cleared away on all sides of 
each habitation, would make of the island population 
who should inhabit them a wholly different kind of 
people. It would take time ; no doubt it would take 
time ; but such changes were absolutely necessary. 
The people would rebel, no doubt ; had they not 
rebelled , in Helios when the rookeries of the old 
quarters had been broken up and cleared away ? 
Was not, unto this very day, the law of decency, 
which'forbade the bathing in the sea at Helios of 
persons without bathing-clothes, resisted violently 
by many people, even by people who were other- 
wise respectable ? 

The advice of Herbert Spencer, c Govern me as 
little as you can/ was the opposite of Theo’s rule 
of conduct and of wisdom. To govern the public in 
every small matter, in every insignificant trifle, was 
his ideal of good government. He had once with 
his own august lips ordered a cottager to turn a cat 
and her kittens off a child’s bed one day when he had 
looked in at a cottage doorway as he waited for a 
village smith to replace a lost nail in one of his 
horse’s shoes. 

‘ Cats are subject to many contagious diseases, 
contact with them is most perilous,’ he had observed ; 
and, terrible to relate, the cottager, who did not know 
who the visitor was, had bawled at him : c The child 
and the cat have slept together five mortal years, and 
you gentry had better not come meddling here ’ — 


VI 


HELIANTHUS 


JI 5 


a reply which led to a domiciliary visit from the 
police of the nearest station, and the ejection of the 
man by his employer from the farm on which he 
worked. 

Theo certainly had intended no such results to the 
family when he made his remark about the ante- 
hygienic properties of the feline race ; and he had 
never given another thought to either the cat or its 
owner after he had bidden one of his gentlemen 
acquaint the Syndic of the district that a certain 
labourer in a certain place appeared to be a person 
who required some admonition in regard to his want 
of respect and of cleanliness. But a hint to an 
official mind against a man who is of no account 
and is always in arrears with his hearth-tax, is like a 
hot cigar-end thrown into a heap of dry maize stalks. 
It flames alight and consumes everything the flame 
can reach, until there is nothing left except a little 
charred ash on a burnt piece of ground. 

Theo never gave another thought to the insolent 
cottager, but his suggestion to the Syndic bore fruit. 

A man does not like interference in his own house. 

A man is rough with his tongue. 

A man is slow in paying the sum called, so 
sympathetically, the hearth-tax. 

A man harbours the subversive and intolerable 
belief that on his own mud floor, between his four 
wattled walls, he is master. 

To the official or bureaucratic mind all these 
beliefs are of a damnable iniquity, seed of all poison 
and peril. They are, to that mind, the root of all 
evil, and to hunt them down and stamp them out 
is a religious duty, as the burning of heretics was 
to the Inquisition. 


1 1 6 HELIANTHUS chap. 

< Kill the cat,’ said his wife. ‘ She’s been our 
curse/ 

‘No/ said the man, c she is a good cat. She has 
fed with us, and she shall starve with us, since starve 
we must/ 

c She will get mice for herself/ said the wife. 

c Not here/ said the man. £ Mice run away from 
a cold hearth and an empty platter. They are just 
like human-folks/ 

The cat found mice in the fields, but the man did 
not find work there. The farmers were shy of a 
labourer who had been visited by the police from 
the town, and who had incurred the displeasure of a 
high personage. The country round was sparsely 
populated ; the land was poor, the land owners were 
poor, the harvests were poor ; it was a part of the 
eastern provinces. There were at all times more 
workers on the soil than there was work to give 
them. Moreover, when you can only do a humble 
kind of work, which many can do as well as you and 
many others can do better, you can create no de- 
mand for yourself, you are quickly replaced, no one 
wants you. If you are pushed out of the one 
groove in which you have always run, you will be as 
helpless as an engine lying on its side at the bottom 
of an embankment. This man, out of work, grew 
desperate. He begged on the roads. He even 
threatened those he met. His wife was in her 
seventh month with her fourth child. The owner 
of the cottage turned them out of it, and kept the 
little furniture they had in the place for rent which 
was overdue. Misery never visits you by herself: 
she always brings a tribe of followers. 

They slept under stacks of cut wood on a moor. 


VI 


HELIANTHUS 


”7 


This was vagabondage according to the law. The 
man was taken up by the rural guards, who had 
a black cross against his name. The woman was 
left half-dead, with a still-born babe ; her couch 
was the rough turf. The little children wandered 
over the moor to try and find something to eat on 
bush or briar. They lost themselves, and were dis- 
covered by a shepherd days afterwards, their bodies 
and limbs cleaned of their flesh by birds of prey. 
When the man was let out of prison he had no 
longer either wife or children ; he had neither home 
nor work ; hie lost his mind and became violent ; 
the authorities had him removed to a lunatic asylum. 
What becomes of poor friendless men who pass such 
gates no one ever knows ; all that is certain is that 
they leave all hope behind them, and are as com- 
pletely blotted out from memory as the dead who 
lie nameless under sand or sod. 

It was, perhaps, almost an excessive punishment 
for having been rude to a prince about a cat. 


CHAPTER VII 

It is an established theory with royalties that their 
families must always be in movement, circulating 
like the gold at a roulette table. Accordingly, in 
the early spring of the following year, another royal 
train was running across one of the most northern 
and mountainous provinces of Helianthus ; a region 
overshadowed by the range of the Rhaetian Alps, 
and swept by their storms and snows. A line of 
railway had been driven across it, up its slopes, along 
its ravines, under its forests, through its gorges, and 
was a part of the direct route which led to the 
old Emperor Gregory’s dominions, where the aged 
Caesar’s ninety-seventh birthday was about to be 
celebrated with all the pomp and rejoicing possible 
on such occasions. 

It was a dangerous line, because the strength of 
the floods in winter, the frequency of landslips on 
the hills, the suddenness with which huge rocks were 
loosened by snow melting in spring and were 
hurled down on to the metal rails, all combined with 
the boisterousness of the rivers, and the ferocity of 
the hill-population, to render the passage of a royal 
train at all times a thing to be environed with con- 
stant and minute precautions. The people living 
in the desolate villages, in huts which clung to the 
118 


chap, vii HELIANTHUS Iip 

stone ledges of the rocks like swallows’ nests, or in 
mossgrown lairs under the pine woods like wolves, 
had been known, in their hatred of the railway, to 
roll great blocks of gneiss across the rails, or to fire 
their rude carbines at the engine-driver or the pas- 
sengers. Therefore when a train carried members 
of the imperial family to the Gunderode, or mem- 
bers of the Gunderode family to their imperial rel- 
atives, the whole permanent way was alive with 
officials and workmen on the watch for danger. 

. c Are we worth all that ? ’ said Othyris, who was, 
with his brother Gavroche, the object of this train’s 
especial journey, as he saw guards and operatives 
patrolling the lofty bridges and the narrow ledges of 
one of the mountain gorges through which they 
passed. c If all this be necessary to save us from an 
accident, why is it not done every day ? The life of 
any other passenger is worth as much to him as ours 
to us.’ 

c But it is to the nation that ours is so precious ! ’ 
said Tyras, with his worst grin. 
c Pshaw ! ’ said Othyris. 

c The dear stupid ass of a nation ! ’ said Gavroche. 
c It is so sweet of it to set our lives so high above its 
own ! And it is very comfortable to journey along 
like this, with thousands of guardian angels on the 
lookout for us, like the English poet’s little cherub 
that sits up aloft to watch over the life of poor 
Jack.’ 

c But there is no cherub for poor Jack when he 
goes by this line ; and if he crashes into petroleum 
waggons, or gets buried under boulders, or is crushed 
into pulp by a goods train, who cares ? ’ 

* Why do you want to be crushed ? ’ 


120 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


‘ I do not want to be crushed, but neither do the 
travellers of every day in ordinary trains ; and if 
these precautions are needed for us, similar precau- 
tions should be taken for them. And they are not 
taken/ 

< Of course they are not taken. Where would 
the shareholders' dividends be ? This is a superb 
line in its engineering, but the promoters went bank- 
rupt, you remember, and Max Vreiheiden got it for 
next to nothing. It is he who runs it, and he is not 
the sort of man to keep the guardian angels all along 
the road for every-day travellers.' 

‘Yes: every mile of the line is being sentinelled, 
sounded, looked over, strengthened, cleared, guarded 
for us — for us alone. Look at those men running 
along that ledge ; there is scarcely space for a cat 
to pass safely ; a slip of the foot, and one of them 
will be hurled into the torrent ; yet they are risking 
their lives for us — at how much a day, I wonder ? 
Enough to buy a maize loaf, a curd cheese, and a 
little tobacco ? ' 

c That is their business ! I have heard that 
when this line was made, a good many hundreds 
of workmen were killed in making it ; so the 
droves of slaves were killed in building the Pyra- 
mids. Only we call them cc operatives," to sound 
pretty, and make believe that theirs is all free labour. 
Of course I know the injustice of the thing as well as 
you do, only I approve of it, and I like to have all 
these ants running about, above there, to tap the 
rocks and make sure that a loose one won't come 
toppling down in our path. They are a kind of 
visible Providence, which is comfortable to ourselves 
and reassuring to the insurance offices. Even the 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


I 2 1 


clergy think that Providence is not quite to be 
trusted alone ! Well, you don’t quarrel with that, 
do you ? It’s privilege.’ 

c I quarrel with all privilege.’ 
c O Lord! Privilege is the rock of ages. If 
that went, where should we be ? ’ 

c Wherever our qualities and our deserts would 
put us.’ 

Tyras gave a dissentient grunt. He had an un- 
comfortable impression that his own qualities and 
deserts would not, alone, entitle him to a glass of 
absinthe. He had no great opinion of his own order ; 
but it seemed to him cutting your own throat, if you 
were a prince yourself, to assume that a prince could 
possibly be judged by his merits. 

Tyras was too intelligent, and too cynically frank, 
not to confess his own worthlessness ; but that 
knowledge did not hinder him from the most de- 
vout persuasion that any filth he indulged in was an 
honour to those whom it bespattered, and, alas ! for 
the baseness of human nature, no one contradicted 
this belief. 

c On triche la haut ! ’ jnurmured a gentleman who 
was once watching the play at a private roulette table 
where Gavroche was raking his gains in largely ; but 
the glances, the frowns, the signs of other persons, 
immediately made this too candid person conscious 
that all that is seen must not be said : that, in the 
words of the old maxim, £ Toute v'erite n est pas 
bonne a dire? It was an understood thing in all the 
good society of Europe that the Prince of Tyras must 
always be allowed to win at play. 

c This train is altogether new,’ said Othyris, look- 
ing up at its ceiling, painted with the story of 


122 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


Europa. c It must have cost half a million of 
francs/ 

c I dare say. Max knows where his bread is 
buttered. He means the King to make him a duke. 
Fifteen years ago he was a clerk in one of the public 
pawn-shops. It was there that he got to know 
where the shoe pinched on people's feet. He lent 
little sums out on pawn-tickets ; when they were not 
paid up in time he took the tickets ; that was how 
he made his first money ; sometimes he used to get 
things worth a great deal for a few copper bits he 
had lent on them. He’s rather a pleasant fellow, 
but that is how he began.’ 

c Does he lend to you ? ’ said Othyris, curtly. 
‘No-; he loses to me at cards,’ said Tyras, with 
one of his suggestive grins. 
c In your own house ? ’ 

c Not yet,’ said Gavroche, who appreciated the 
question. ‘ Theo has him to lunch to-day. But 
Theo’s motives are immaculate. He wants to float 
the great Fortification Loan.’ 

c There is one comfort,’ said Othyris, c Herr Yrei- 
heiden will undoubtedly, eventually, rook you both.’ 

c Oh, he’ll take it out of us certainly,’ replied 
Tyras, light-heartedly ; c and out of the country 
too ! ’ 

The train made a sound like a death-rattle as it 
ran across one of the lofty bridges of the line which 
were triumphs of engineering science ; beneath it 
roared the deep, green, foaming waters of a river 
which, happily for its virgin beauty, was too far from 
the haunts of men for even engineers to dream of 
violating it for the use of cities or the purposes of 
electricity. 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


12 3 


Tyras. sauntered into the next compartment to 
get a drink; Othyris was left alone with his own 
thoughts and the view of the sombre landscape and 
the furious tumbling waters. His meditations were 
as dark as the pine-clothed mountains shutting out 
the sky. He loathed the egotism of his caste, and 
he was forced to accept its protection and its pro- 
visions. He envied an angler, standing bare-legged 
on a boulder of rock in the midst of the eddying 
emerald current. 

The Fortification Loan was taken up by Max 
Vreiheiden, and M^ax Vreiheiden was lunching with 
Theo ! Theo, who was supposed to be an honest 
man and to keep his hands clean ! 

Max Vreiheiden had seen the light in a poor 
quarter of the capital of the Guthonic Empire. A 
mutilation of three fingers of his left hand had 
spared him the military ordeal. As a boy he had 
sold daily journals, cheap sweetmeats, wooden toys, 
or anything else which anyone would entrust to him. 
If he were not always honest in his petty trading, he 
had at least the adroitness to remember and observe 
the one necessary commandment, c Thou shalt not 
be found out ; ’ he was punctual, zealous, intelligent, 
obedient, silent ; he had a wonderful capacity for 
^ figures, and could do the most complicated sums in 
his brain. In a word, he was of the stuff of which the 
modern world makes its leaders ; he would eat any 
amount of dirt in the service of anybody, provided 
that the dirt was the washings of a gold-pan. Such 
a youth is sure to make his way to the front ; more 
slowly in Europe than in the Americas, but still 
surely. Before he was thirty-five he was a Colossus 
of the money-market; owned provinces, mines. 


124 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


kingdoms, diamond-fields, pearl-fisheries, and many 
newspapers ; had tens of thousands of Chinese, of 
negroes, of Kaffirs, of coolies, under his law, in con- 
ditions which were slavery in all except name, and 
something still worse than slavery ; and meantime 
had his health drunk at the banquets of Corpora- 
tions, and his hand shaken by sovereigns. £ My 
Max could buy all their crowns/ said his little old 
mother ; and they knew it. 

Theo was an honest man, as Gavroche had said; 
he had up to the date of his inspection of the Isles 
of Adonis never been touched by that form of 
covetousness and unscrupulousness which makes the 
speculator, whether the speculation be a cocoanut at 
a fair-raffle or a gigantic scheme on the Exchanges 
of the world. His mind and character were narrow, 
hard, unreceptive, cramped by prejudice and by 
privilege, but honourable in their own dull fashion. 
Yet for the first time some virus of the modern 
disease of acquisitiveness was instilled into him when 
he heard and read the prospectus of Max Vreiheiden 
concerning the Hundred Isles. 

He believed sincerely that his patriotism alone 
moved him in his desire to see the archipelago 
fortified, and that his decency and enlightenment 
alone inspired schemes for the civilisation of the 
picturesque and scandalous islanders. But he was 
unconsciously tempted by the golden bait hung out 
to him. Like most heirs to thrones, the demands on 
him were much in excess of his means of expenditure. 
Economical as both he and his wife were, they were 
almost painfully harassed by the tenuity of their re- 
sources ; and to make ends meet was as hard to them 
at times as to any village shopkeeper or shoemaker. 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


I2 5 


So Max Vreiheiden lunched with them on this 
day. And the Crown Princess, who knew all about 
him, was not pleased ; although she smiled, as she 
was ordered to . do, and exchanged reminiscences 
with him of their mutual country, which was once 
defined by a royal lady, exiled to it by her marriage, 
as a land of fir-trees and potatoes. 

Othyris was roused from his thoughts by the 
shrill voice of Gavroche. 

c And our venerable Gregory? Has he not en- 
joyed life ninety odd years ? And have not all the 
good physicians been busy all the world over in 
brewing serum to put sap into his worn-out trunk? 
Oh, my good Elim, so long as we can buy men 
at their own price they will always make life pleas- 
ant to us/ 

c Perhaps : but if we be of the type which does 
not care to buy, or will not stoop to buy them ? ' 

> c Oh, then, we are irreconcilables,' said Tyras, with 
his little thin uncanny laugh ; c then we are doomed 
to have a bad time of it from our cradles. There is 
nothing so diverting as le march'e aux hommes , and 
most amusing of all is the persuasion of men that 
they remain incorruptible, when one has just paid 
for them body and soul ! But if, like you, we are 
irreconcilables, who don't see the fun of the fair, of 
course it is all lost upon us.' 

c In that sense I am, I confess, an irreconcilable. 
The baseness of my fellow-creatures does not amuse 
me.' 

c Then you lose the best part of the eternal Comedie 
Humaine .' 

c I see but little comedy, for over it all — there is 
death.' 


126 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c Eh, that is the biggest joke of the whole! All 
the pother and bother, the cheating and intriguing, 
the lying and the toadying, the scrimmage and the 
scoundrelism of it all, only to end in a handful of 
ashes, or a shell of wood, after a tale of years not 
so long as an elephant’s when he is allowed to live 
out his natural life. To see men taking ground- 
leases for nine hundred and ninety years when their 
own measure is at most fourscore, is there any droller 
farce than that ? Or the fellow who begins life as a 
labourer, or a clerk, and by sharpness and gambling 
in stocks gets to be owner of millions before he is 
thirty-five, and dies at forty of an aneurism from 
over-strain, just as he is beginning to lick his lips 
and enjoy himself ? What is that if not the most 
delicious comedy one can see ? ’ 

c My dear Gavroche,’ said Othyris, c whether a 
theatre amuses one or not, depends more on one’s 
own mood than on the stage one watches. It is so 
with the theatre of life. It diverts you. It saddens 
me. You have, I admit, the better part.’ 

‘And yet your liver is sound and mine is 
spavined!’ said Tyras, enviously. c By all the rules 
of physiology it is you who should laugh and I who 
should weep.’ 

c Do you think pity is only born of a bad digestion ? 
It is the pity I feel for men which makes me un- 
able to grin as you do at the sight of their struggles. 
The other day at a social congress in the city of 
London a speaker gave it as his deliberate opinion 
that the increase of wages had only led to the in- 
crease of drunkenness. Is that not a fact to make 
even you serious? To me it seems that nothing 
more sad was ever said. It is true,’ he added, with 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


127 


an inflection in his voice which Gavroche understood, 
that it is perhaps still more sad, as it is certainly 
less excusable, when a gentleman burns up his vis- 
cera with alcohol and kills his brains with absinthe/ 
c Damn you ! ' said Tyras. 

c Damn me, certainly, if it please you to do so. 
But why damn yourself? * 

c I enjoy myself. I wallow in the mud ; lots of 
creatures like to do that ; we have as much right to 
our mud as you have to your spring-water/ 

‘ What we have a cc right” to is very questionable. 
The rough in the crowd and the prince in the carriage 
both think they have a right to be maintained by the 
ratepayers, but I doubt it in either case/ 

‘ we know you do ; you're an anarchist ! ' 
c I am an anarchist if it be one to find the world 
in a most disreputable state of carnage and confusion. 
But I fear I am not even an anarchist, for I do not 
believe in the heaven-compelling powers of revolvers, 
or in the goddess Justitia being carried in a bomb. 
What I do understand, however, is why poor, 
desperate, and foolish men do think so, especially 
when they see un grand de la ter re, like the Prince of 
Tyras, wallowing in the mud, which he prefers to 
spring- water.' 

c Damn you,’ said Gavroche, a second time. 
c You are such an imbecile,' Othyris added. c You 
have everything you can desire. You are not a 
Hercules, but you have sound health. You are so 
good-looking that the women would go mad about 
you if you were a peasant. You have immense 
riches, and can do what you like with them. You 
have talents which are very nearly genius. Yet you 
enjoy nothing, because you have Hamlet’s disease in 


128 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


you : the craze to set a wrong world right, and turn 
a whirligig of lunatics into an academy of philoso- 
phers. What the deuce does the world matter to 
you ? You did not make it. Why don’t you amuse 
yourself, and let other men go hang as they please ? ’ 
c Why did Hamlet trouble himself about other 
people’s sins ? He was not responsible for them.’ 

c Nor are you responsible for the country’s mis- 
government, if it be misgoverned. If you were king 
to-morrow what could you do to make it better 
governed? Nothing. The whole thing is cut and 
dried, and unalterable. You have too much brain to 
believe you could change it. You could not put a 
fowl into every pot as Henri Quatre wished to do. 
You could only go on in the groove in which others 
have gone before you.’ 

c I am well aware of it ! And then you wonder 
that I am rebellious against fate ? ’ 

C I wonder why you kick against the pricks instead 
of taking the goods the gods give you. Hamlet 
could have been as happy as a grig if he had liked. 
But he was Hamlet — unfortunately for himself.’ 
Othyris smiled. 

f O cursed spite. 

That ever I was born to set it right ! 

c I assure you I have not Hamlet’s belief ; I do not 
think I was born to any such high end or aim. But, 
as I told you, what makes you grin makes me sigh ; 
just as you like brandy and I like hock. There is 
no accounting for the diversity of tastes, my dear 
Gavroche. However, I do not think I am like Ham- 
let. My disease, if it be one, is of a different kind. 
What weighs on me is the sense of an immense 
responsibility and of an equally great impotence.’ 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


129 


c Enjoy yourself! * 

Othyris was silent. 

/ But what will you do when you reign, if you 
reign?’ Tyras said, seriously for once. C A liberal 
king is a contradiction in terms. A king or an em- 
peror cannot be liberal, because to preserve himself, 
and what are called the institutions which go with 
him, he must sanction the shooting and imprisoning 
of persons who would upset him and the institutions. 
If you are ever king, either you will have to abolish 
yourself and disappear, or drop down into the com- 
fortable self-admiration and self-acceptance in which 
your ancestors have been content to dwell with so 
much complacency. One or the other you must do.’ 

‘ Do you suppose that the problem you propose 
as a novelty has not been the torment of my soul ever 
since I could think the thoughts of a man at all?’ 
said Othyris, with some impatience. c There is one 
consolation. Theo’s life is a better one than mine.’ 

c Physically, perhaps, but he is hated by the people. 
He is more likely to have a bullet put 'in him than 
you are. I wouldn’t count too much on his out- 
living me, if I were you. Besides, you know, with 
your views, it is absolutely immoral* in you to wish 
him to live. When he gets into saddle, won’t he 
use the spurs ! The good horse Populus will bleed 
from both flanks when Theo sits astride on its back.’ 

Othyris was. silent. He knew it only too well. 
Theo. had all his father’s hardness and cruelty, with- 
out his father’s cool and shrewd intuitions. 

c En j°y yourself! ’ said Tyras, for a second time. 
c You may worry yourself into tuberculosis, but you 
will not make anybody or anything any better. 
Enjoy yourself.’ 


130 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


But to Othyris the power of enjoyment was pressed 
out of him by the weight and weariness of his 
position. 

At the frontier Tyras left the royal train to go 
westward across Europe to that capital of Gallia which 
was the centre of his chief delights, and where he was 
known by a petit nom more suggestive than compli- 
mentary, in society more amusing than correct. 
Othyris continued his journey northward ; he was 
sent to represent his father and his family at the cele- 
bration of the ninety-seventh birthday of the Emperor 
Gregory at the greatest city of the great empire of the 
Septentriones, where frost still held ice-bound all the 
rivers, and icicles hung from all the roofs, whilst in 
Helianthus the warmth and the sunshine of early 
spring were flooding the land with light, and filling 
the saddest soul with that hopefulness which is born 
with the renascence of the earth. 

He went, unwillingly, on a mission in all ways 
distasteful to him ; he disliked show, pomp, crowds, 
publicity ; and he went with especial reluctance, 
for a parental desire to make him wed his young 
cousin Xenia was being urged into a formal betrothal. 

The vast empire of the Septentriones, over which 
the Emperor Gregory ruled in undisputed autocracy, 
was at once oriental and barbaric, stretching from the 
ice of frozen seas to the hot sands of parching plains. 
It was a giant with ponderous mace and mailed fist, 
and it was a cripple with frost-bitten feet and empty 
belly ; it was ruled by the whip and the sabre ; and 
when tens of thousands died of famine on its lands, it 
let them die : they mattered less than the murrained 
fields of wheat. 

Old Gregory had led an elegant, a joyous, and 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


I 3 I 


an accomplished life; he had been a patron of 
the arts, a procreator of many children, a free liver 
an amiable gentleman, popular wherever he was’ 
seen, with a suave smile and a gracious phrase 
tor . all, especially for those who were not his 
subjects. 

* H t!? J lfe T | lad keen long, prosperous, and little 
troubled. He was compared by preachers and publi- 
cists to Solomon in all his glory and wisdom ; and if 
his mind were rather that of the boulevardier , this 
condescension in him was only the more affable. 
He was now crystallised by extreme age into 
legendary virtue and wisdom, and all the nations 
vied in doing him honour and admiring his 
longevity. Longevity, which in the poor is an 
annoying impertinence, seems in the rich and the 
royal a kind of condescending talent. His throne 
was planted on a solid bed of gun-metal, set round 
with half a million bayonets. Zeus himself could 
never have been more completely aloof from mortal 
struggles. Revolution offended him because it 
was rude, because it was silly, because it was im- 
pertinent; but it was too faraway from him really 
to matter. Blood had run like water in his chief cities 
many a time; gangs of young men had been carried 
in irons out to exile and captivity ; women had been 
beaten with rods ; unarmed crowds had been mown 
down by grape-shot, and driven before bayonets ; 
but all these things had not disturbed him greatly : 
nay, the sound of the cannonades had seldom even 
reached his arm-chair at the opera, his tribune at the 
law meeting, his supper-table, his slumber in a 
woman’s arms. Revolution annoyed him as the 
grinding of a barrel-organ or the quarrelling of cats 


1 3 2 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


may annoy a gentleman sitting in his library reading 
Horace: no more. 

But now the Emperor was very old ; old as 
Nestor, old as Priam, old as Lear; his swollen legs 
had long refused to move; his chin was sunk upon 
his breast ; his false teeth rattled and moved when he 
spoke ; his eyes were very dim, and his skull was as 
bald as a new-born babe’s. Four attendants carried 
him in a chair contrived with the utmost ingenuity to 
make his helplessness as little visible as possible. 
Ninety-seven long years stretched behind him ; and 
their length had left him little taste or understanding 
for anything except the pleasures of the table and 
the amassing of gold, with some little relish still for 
the adroitness and innuendo of the wit of the Paris 
boulevards. 

The Emperor’s chief interest, now, was his white 
Persian cat, Blanchette, and his sole counsellor was 
his favourite physician, Seychelles. Wars and ru- 
mours of wars had long lost their meaning for him ; 
he was even indifferent to the state of the Bourses ; 
the state of his own pulse alone concerned him. 
When he was wheeled into the room where his 
Council of State awaited him, he sat with his chin on 
his chest, sniffing the odorous blossom placed in 
his buttonhole ; but he neither knew nor cared what 
decisions were taken round the table. 

His sons were all dead, and the oldest of his 
grandsons, Stephen, the King of Gelum, as his title 
was as heir to the throne, had reached fifty years of 
age ; a man very impatient to reign, and grown very 
grey under the fret and fume of such long waiting. 

‘ Grand-grand-Gri-gris ’ was the nickname that 
the numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


J 33 


of the old Emperor gave him amongst themselves. 
They had a sincere veneration for him : he had laid 
by so much ! He had so much to leave ! As a 
ruler he had been niggard, but for his family he had 
stored up wealth untold. All the insurance compa- 
nies of the two hemispheres watched his frail existence 
with as keen an anxiety as did his descendants, and 
when he coughed or took a chill, financiers quaked 
with fear, and his grandsons and great-grandsons 
thrilled with hope. All the Press of Europe agreed 
that the preservation of the nonagenarian’s existence 
was the greatest blessing that a merciful Deity could 
give to a reckless and too thankless mankind ; that 
his existence was indeed the only rein by which the 
disorderly passions of the nations were held in check ; 
so that his private virtues, like the public uses and 
greatness of him, will probably pass into a myth, in- 
destructible by criticism, and growing more and more 
venerable with time. 

Such legends die hard ; and the legend of the Em- 
peror Gregory’s invaluable services to the terrestrial 
globe is a very tough and tenacious one. Nothing, 
probably, will ever destroy it, except the publication 
of secret memoirs after his death ; and there will be 
many and mighty persons interested to suppress 
these — j sufficiently interested, perhaps, to succeed 
in burning them unpublished. 

The national Press always said that the family 
affection so conspicuous in the imperial line was one 
of the holiest and most beautiful spectacles which 
the world could see ; but the old Emperor knew 
better. He was attached to his vast progeny, but he 
was aware that most of them looked forward impa- 
tiently to his decease. 


134 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c Leone XIII. is more fortunate than 1/ said the 
great Gregory bitterly once. c He has none of his 
blood, begotten of his loins, who are wishing him 
in his grave ! * 

However, he who without a qualm would consign 
thousands of the populations of his cities to the mines, 
or to the underground cells of fortresses, was weak 
of will in his family relations, and indulgent to his 
descendants. They were his ; that sufficed to make 
them sacred to him ; and his temper in private life 
was good-humoured and good-natured ; he forgave 
much to his own blood, nothing to others. 

If he had a preference for any one of the hundred 
and twenty-two descendants by whom he was 
blessed, he preferred Othyris, who never asked him 
for anything. All the others were always importun- 
ing for something, either for themselves or for their 
favourites, male or female. But Othyris had never 
even asked him for the ribbon of an Order for one 
of his gentlemen. 

f Cest un fou ,’ had the old Caesar once said of 
Othyris to King John. £ Mais ma foil c est un fou 
fort distingue .’ 

‘ Je vois la folie ; je ne vois pas la distinction l ’ 
muttered King John, too low for the Emperor's aged 
ears to hear. 

Othyris carried with him the presents and congratu- 
lations of his father and his family to this celebration 
of the Emperor’s ninety-seventh year. He occupied 
one of the finest suites of apartments in the imperial 
palace. He rode one of the finest chargers of the 
many fine horses which caracoled before and behind 
the carriage in which the aged sovereign drove 
through his capital. He wore his uniform of Colonel 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


*35 


of the White Guards of the Septentriones and his 
Orders of the great Empire of the North. He was 
present at all the church services, the addresses, the 
sacraments, the banquets, the processions, the fes- 
tivities ; and that aged, bald, stooping, deaf, and 
purblind man, the centre of all this splendour and 
pageantry and acclamation, seemed to him a very 
piteous figure as the salvoes of artillery thundered, 
and the roar of applauding multitudes rolled through 
the air of the great city. 

c It is I who am wrong, perhaps, since everything 
which pleases others displeases me/ thought Othyris. 

The Father of his People ! 

The Nestor of Europe ! 

The Agamemnon of the North ! 

The Solomon of the Septentriones ! 

These and many such titles and phrases were 
emblazoned or embroidered on the banners, and 
arches, and draperies which floated in the mild, pale 
air of the days of Pentecost. The crowds were in- 
toxicated with that contagion of emotion which is 
at once as unreal and as violent as the forces of de- 
lirium ; the hysterical passion of suggested feeling, 
which is at once as true and as false as the laughter 
or the tears of the drunkard. Women sobbed aloud ; 
men dashed the tears of joy from their eyes ; little 
children were lifted up in strong hands and bidden 
to bless this king of kings ; frail ladies were trampled 
under foot, nervous minds moved restless limbs to 
unseemly antics, young girls swooned from emotion, 
aged people cried and danced in their temporary 
insanity, many younger people were pushed, bruised, 
kicked, even killed ; the atmosphere was electric, 
intoxicating as brandy, teeming with the infusoria of 


136 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


disease, the infectiousness of lunacy, — there was no 
sense in it, no root in it, no veracity in it, no more 
than in the ravings of the sick in a typhoid ward ; 
but it had all the violence of fever, and all its 
obstinacy. 

c If he has patience he will have his desires, and be 
a fetish too in his turn,’ thought Othyris, as he saw 
the dull and tired eyes of his uncle Stephen fixed 
upon the crowd, which was surging around and 
against the six white horses of the old Emperor’s 
glass coach : the coach which had been made a 
hundred and fifty years before, and whose beautiful 
panels represented the triumphs of Alexander. All 
things come to those who know how to wait ; so at 
least the proverb affirms, but Stephen was tired of 
waiting. He was cowed and silenced by long habit 
and daily pressure, but by nature he was impatient, 
as the feeble of will often are, and all his life was 
crumbling away in this weary expectation, this chafing 
at long delay. Long waiting is good for no one. 
The sword rusts in the scabbard. The pearl grows 
yellow in the jewel-case. In his youth Stephen, 
King of Gelum, had been a man of some fair prom- 
ise and of many good intentions ; but desire deferred 
and impotence to act had left him sapless as a hollow 
tree, bitter as a withered lemon. 

The Emperor was greatly fatigued by his public 
appearance; it was not until three days later that 
Othyris was summoned to his presence. 

He was reclining in a large low chair; he was 
wrapped in a dressing-gown of velvet, lined with 
sable, for he was always cold, although his palace 
was kept at the temperature of a hothouse. On his 
knee was his favourite white cat, Blanchette. He 


VII 


helianthus 


*37 


had been a very handsome man in his youth and 
manhood, and his features, wasted, haggard and 
wnnkied by extreme old age, were still finely formed, 
and had a distant resemblance to the portraits and 
statues of him in an earlier time. 


‘ A quand la noce, Elim ?’ asked the old man, with 
a senile chuckle. 


Othyris knew to what he alluded, and intimated 
that no bridal bells were likely to ring for him. 

‘Humph, humph, you mistake. They will not 
let you remain celibate,’ murmured his great-grand- 
father. ‘Wed Xenia. Wed Xenia. She is In ap- 
petising little morsel, and you need not be troubled 
about her ; let her take the bit between her teeth * 
she will leave you alone/ 

But he was still tired from the fatigues of his tri- 
umph, and his eyes were closing and his senses 
growing drowsy ; and Blanchette stretched herself, 
somnolent also, on his knee, and closed her own sea- 
blue eyes. 


Suddenly old Gregory roused himself and looked 
suspiciously at Othyris, who remained standing be- 
fore. his chair, not having been either dismissed or 
retained. 


Look you, Elim, said the old Emperor, c if you 
take Xenia, I will dower her well. But in my will 
I shall leave you nothing; you are so rich through 
your uncle Basil/ 

‘ You will do me the greatest favour, sir/ said 
Othyris; and he meant sincerely what he said. ‘I 
have too much as it is/ 


c I will leave you Blanchette/ said the old man, 
stroking his cat’s snowy fur. 

‘ She shall be Blanchette la bienvenue. Only I 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


I 3 8 

cannot answer for the politeness to her of my 
dogs/ 

Old Gregory looked at him sharply through his 
glasses, and smiled grimly, showing the gold of his 
teeth. 

‘Any other member of your family would have 
offered to kill every dog in Helios lest they should 
molest Blanchette ! After all, perhaps I had better 
leave her to little Xenia/ 

‘They have qualities in common, sir/ 

The old man laughed, and his teeth rattled. 

‘ Blanchette is a democrat ; Xenia is certainly not 
like her in that respect/ he answered, stroking her. 
‘But democrats are easily tamed by warm rooms, 
and cream, and ribbons on their breasts/ 

He chuckled feebly ; in his far-away youth he had 
been of an acute and satirical humour, and he had 
often amused himself by playing with his enemies. 

‘Blanchette/ continued the old man, ‘Blanchette 
has no sense of her position. She is entirely indif- 
ferent to her privileges. I have even seen her in 
one of the inner courts sitting on a scullion’s shoul- 
der: it is shocking, but true. You, Elim, resemble 
Blanchette.’ 

‘ I do not caress scullions, sir, though doubtless 
many good youths may be found amongst them.’ 

‘In theory you do; in theory. My dear Elim, 
the deluge will come without you ; there is no need 
for you to open the sluices and cut the dykes. Your 
new creeds are very old. Your ideas were held by 
all the eighteenth century philosophers, and with 
what end ? The Bourbons were slain and exiled, 
but the stock returned/ 

Othyris was silent. It was as useless to argue 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


l 39 


with this fossilised mind as to reason with the sculp- 
tures in the adjacent gallery ; and in a measure the 
old man was right. Of what use was the indigna- 
tion of a Voltaire ? A Calas always exists some- 
where or other, is always doomed to a scaffold. Of 
what use the dreams of a Vergniaud, the theories 
of the Salons of the Directoire, the visions of an 
Andre Chenier, the hopes and ideals of a Rene, of 
a Lamartine ? They result in Louis Dix-huit, in 
Louis Philippe, in Louis Napoleon, in Grevy, Faure, 
Loubet. The blood and the brains of the idealists 
boil in the cauldron of suffering, congeal in the ice- 
caverns of death, and out of them there always arise 
the Philistine and the Prince. 

‘ Leave your revolutionary fancies and marry 
little Xenia, said the old monarch. c You will have 
many children, and she will send your dogs to the 
kennels. Xenia is only a saucy, overgrown, im- 
pudent child just now, but she has the making in 
her of a maitresse femme . You want a maitresse 
femme to take charge of you.' 

c And our children would be tuberculous and 
scrofulous as the children of the unions of first 
cousins always are/ thought Othyris. ‘ Pray, sir, 
excuse me/ he said aloud. ‘ Xenia must make the 
happiness of some worthier mortal. I am quite in- 
capable of appreciating her/ 

c You mean to disappoint her father and yours ? * 
the old man asked, with some amusement. 

c I cannot enter into their views for my happiness.' 
c Why not ? ' 
c For many reasons, sir.' 

c Humph ! I think you have only to obey in 
this matter.' 


140 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


Othyris was silent ; but his features were cold and 
did not promise an obedient temperament. The 
old man looked at him with eyes dim but shrewd. 

‘ Look you, Elim ; your uncle is a poor creature, 
but your father is a hard man ; he breaks what 
opposes him. Give way in this matter. Xenia is 
jo lie a croquer ; and if you do not care for her, let 
her have her head ; she will know how to amuse 
herself.’ 

£ That is not my idea of marriage, sir.’ 

c Yours is an alliance,’ said the old Emperor sig- 
nificantly. 

Othyris was silent. 

‘You have no will of your own ; we can break it 
if you have. We can break it,’ he said, in a shrill 
screaming voice, being irritated by opposition ; and 
he struck the floor with his crutch so sharply that 
Blanchette turned her round blue eyes on him in 
alarm and skipped down from his knees. 

Othyris was still silent. 

He was thinking of how many human wills had 
been broken, like dry canes in a north gale, by that 
cruel old man whose blood was in his own veins. 
He was thinking of the gangs of fettered prisoners 
driven across the barren plains through snow and 
storm ; of the hordes of poor fanatic peasants exiled, 
scourged, starved, forced out into the frozen night, 
and left to perish unpitied under the stars of the 
extreme north ; of genius, of ideality, of heroism, 
of self-sacrifice shut down under the casemates of 
fortresses ; of pregnant women beaten with rods as 
ripe grain is threshed by flails, the young and gener- 
ous blood running like the blood of steers and 
heifers in the conduits of shambles. Yes, they 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


141 


could break the will, no doubt, but only by break- 
ing first the cord of life. 

‘We can break you — break, break, break ’ 

said the old Emperor in a thin shrieking voice, and 
he choked in his sudden wrath, and coughed with a 
gasping, rasping noise in his throat, and rang his 
gold hand-bell noisily. Seychelles, who was always 
within hearing, hurried to the rescue ; of all things 
the most to be dreaded was any excitement, any 
agitation, at the great age of the great monarch. 

The marriage had been decided on between Xenia's 
parents and John of Gunderode ; for no especial 
reason, and in the usual ignorance which moves 
royal races to do that which the owners of horses 
and dogs most carefully avoid, i.e. to breed in and 
in, to perpetually cross and recross the same stock. 

His younger sister, the Princess Euphrosyne, was 
betrothed to the eldest son of Stephen, and it 
seemed to both families that the union between him- 
self and Xenia would be everything which could be 
desired. 

Sooner, he thought, would he take one of the 
fisher girls of the sea villages of the Helianthine 
coast, with their virginal grace, their goddess-like 
strength and simplicity, their calm and chaste regard, 
so like to that of the busts of Artemis. 

Maitresse femme ! 

Yes : little Xenia would be that perhaps in time, 
but she would first be many other things as well. 
The sentinels at the palace gates could not keep 
out the atmosphere of the century. 

A little later he joined in the gardens his many 
cousins, sons and daughters of the heir to the throne, 
who were playing lawn-tennis in the midst of an 


142 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


admiring circle of lords and ladies in waiting, tutors, 
governesses, and the other small fry of a great Court. 
Xenia was amongst them, sixteen years old, using 
her racket with skill and decision, as like the Loulou 
of Gyp as one cherry is like another ; for the ten- 
dencies of modern generations penetrate alike the 
palace and the hovel, subtle as gases, invisible and 
irresistible as electricity, corroding as acids, blighting 
youth even whilst it stimulates it, as the heat of the 
compost forces the flower and withers it. 

c Savez-vous , beau cousin y vous etes mon futur ? ’ she 
said, with impudent challenge in her bright, bold 
green-grey eyes ; eyes like the ice of her northern seas. 

‘ V raiment ? J'en doute ! 9 he answered curtly. 

c On V a decide ! ’ she said gaily ; but there was an 
angry gleam in her impertinent, saucy, malicious 
gaze. 

He did not answer, but sent the ball flying across 
the net. She was wholly unattractive to him ; she 
was even repulsive ; this half-grown girl, this demie- 
vierge, with her bold, hard gaze, her cynical pro- 
vocative smile, her boyish, abrupt address ; the 
Loulou of Gyp, though an Imperial Highness. 

On the morrow he had an interview, which was 
painful to both, with his uncle Stephen. He stated 
courteously but inflexibly his resolution not to marry 
his young cousin ; indeed, not to marry at all. He 
made the statement as politely as the nature of it 
allowed, but of necessity it wounded and offended 
his relative. Stephen was by no means an unamiable 
man, but he was one with whom circumstance had 
always been at variance : he had a wife who ruled 
him, and an old man who treated him contumeliously, 
a heritage which escaped him like a mirage, and a 


vir HELIANTHUS 143 

numerous family of which all the members gave him 
constant anxiety. He was the kind of man who, 
whether he be king or cobbler, is every one’s prey ; 
he was kind, peevish, lavish, niggard, uncertain, un- 
happy ; his courtiers pillaged him, his wife ridiculed 
him, his children tormented him, his grandfather 
terrorised him. He was the ruler that was to be ; 
meantime every one ruled him. 

He pulled off his blue glasses nervously, and 
beat a tattoo with them on the blotting-pad on 
the writing-table. The issue of the conversation 
was full of anxiety for him. He knew John of 
Gunderode in every smallest detail of his character. 
He knew that although a thing might be of no 
importance whatsoever, yet if the King had once 
decided on that thing he would never let it go, or 
alter his decision, even if it should cost a million 
times its value. He knew that his brother-in-law 
had the tenacity of the ferret, joined to that obsti- 
nate vanity which the human animal alone possesses. 
There was no crevice of that close-shut mind into 
which Stephen had not peered ; for he had loved 
his sister, and had studied profoundly the man 
who had made her unhappiness. In addition, he 
had studied his brother-in-law with the keen and 
harassing interest which the debtor takes in the cred- 
itor. He had himself been always poor in compari- 
son with the immensity of his obligatory expenditure, 
and John of Gunderode had often rescued him from 
embarrassments; but he knew very well that the 
motive of the rescue had not been one of friendship 
pr kindness, but of that shrewd and unerring self- 
interest which the King brought into every act, 
private and public, of his career. And now if this 


i 4 4 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


creditor were denied the hand of Xenia, which he 
coveted for his son because it was well known that 
the old monarch would dower her magnificently, 
the sufferer would be Xenia’s unhappy father. 

He did not personally care about this marriage; 
but his grandfather had desired it, and to dispute the 
will of the old Emperor seemed to him a Titanic 
scaling of heaven, certain to draw down chastisement ; 
his brother-in-law also desired it, and King John 
was not an agreeable person to thwart. Moreover, 
it is never flattering to a parent to hear that alliance 
with his daughter is undesired. He imagined that 
he saw the illicit influence of the lawless loves of 
Othyris in this withdrawal of his nephew ; and that 
supposition tended to make him more offended than 
he might otherwise have been. 

c Surely you owe the King, your father, obedience?’ 
he said feebly, and with what little dignity he possessed. 
Othyris replied : 

c I owe the King, my father, obedience, un- 
doubtedly in much ; as a soldier, as a son, as a 
subject ; but only in some matters, not in all. 
Marriage or celibacy are matters of private life, of 
personal choice. My father’s rights stop short of 
my private life, of my personal choice.’ 

c I cannot admit that,’ said his uncle nervously, 
and in alarm ; c you would introduce rebellion into 
the sacred arx of the family.’ 

c There is one thing more sacred than the family. 
It is self-respect,’ replied Othyris. 
c You would imply ’ 

c Nothing that is offensive. I merely mean that 
self-respect cannot exist where there is not liberty of 
opinion and of action in personal matters.’ 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


H5 


‘ Liberty ! The catchword of the canaille ! * 
Sometimes. But nevertheless the finest word in 
human language/ 

Stephen looked at him with curiosity through his 
blue glasses. 

c They, accredit you with subversive opinions. 
Where did you get their infection ? * 

Othyris smiled slightly. 

c Of my opinions I can say truly that they are my 
own, borrowed from no man/ 

‘There is nothing more dangerous/ said his uncle, 
with irritable impatience. 

‘ W hy so ? ’ 

‘Because — because — the person who trusts and 
glories in his own powers of judgment, defies au- 
thority and breaks loose from tradition. He be- 
comes a law unto himself/ 

‘ Exactly/ 

‘ You think that permissible ? * 

‘ I think it inevitable if a man, whatever be his 
station, have any respect for himself/ 

‘ You would destroy religion ! * 

‘ I would destroy superstitions and priesthoods/ 
‘You would destroy faith, law, order! It is 
anarchy ! anarchy and chaos ! ’ said Stephen, with a 
nervous thrill of horror which shook his whole feeble 
person. ‘ I would trust no daughter of mine to you. 
Time will temper your folly, no doubt, and show 
you the error of your ways ; but I would not risk 
the future of my child in such an experiment. Can 
you be the son of my beloved sister, of my dear 
and faultless Feodorowna? , 

Othyris bowed his head reverently at his mother's 
name. 


146 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c Then/ he said, after a pause, c since we are both 
of accord, my dear uncle, that I am wholly unworthy 
of my cousin’s hand, we will discuss and disagree no 
more. I am always your devoted servant and 
nephew; and we are both agreed that I could not 
either deserve, or properly fill, any nearer relation to 
you.’ 

Poor Stephen felt that he had blundered stupidly 
in giving Othyris a chance of withdrawal. What, 
too, would his wife say ? She also was not easy to 
reconcile to any departure from her accepted plans. 
The proposed alliance for her youngest daughter 
pleased her : she considered, as every one did, that 
Elim would in all probability succeed eventually to 
the throne of Helianthus. 

c But your father ? ’ he said, with vacillation 
and fear. He was keenly afraid of his brother-in- 
law, in whose coffers lay many of his own signatures. 

c When you and I are of accord/ said Othyris, 
c my father, however displeased or regretful he may 
be, will be powerless.’ 

c Of accord ! You and I are of accord in 
nothing ! ’ 

c In opinion, no ; but concerning my unworthiness 
of my cousin Xenia’s hand, yes.’ 

The unfortunate King of Gelum felt that he had 
been checkmated, and that further argument was 
useless. The younger man had been the more 
astute. 

Othyris went to his sleeping-carriage in the 
imperial train, which was to take him to the south- 
east frontier, well content with the issue of the 
interview. 

As the train bore him towards the frontier, 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


*47 


he looked at the still frozen plains over which 
it passed, the snow-laden leaden skies, the miser- 
able cabins blocked up and blotted out by the 
winter’s drifts, the starved cattle with bones piercing 
through their hides, the wretched horses trying to 
scrape their way to buried roots or mosses or to 
break the ice of frozen pools and ditches, the 
peasants dragging driftwood over the snow or 
digging paths to their churches ; and the sharp 
brutal contrast of this misery with the splendour of 
the scenes from which he had come, hurt him as with 
some physical pain. Ninety-seven years of his great- 
grandfather’s life had been passed without the peace 
and pleasure of the Father of his People having been 
for an hour disturbed by this contrast, or his con- 
science ever having been awakened by the know- 
ledge of the ocean of misery rolling over these 
plains. c God forgive us!’ thought Othyris; and 
then even that thought seemed to him a blasphemy. 
Who could believe in the goodness of a God by whom 
such contrasts had been created between man and 
man ? 

He returned home by sea, his father having given 
him the mission of a complimentary visit to the 
Ottoman ruler who was at that moment harrying, 
burning, pillaging, massacring, in an adjacent Chris- 
tian semi- Asiatic state, wholly undisturbed by the 
Christian potentates of the civilised West. His 
own yacht and two war-vessels awaited him at a 
southern port. His visit to the oriental potentate 
was felicitously concluded, and his homeward voyage 
was beautiful across the dark foaming inland sea, and 
past the cypress woods, the ancient monasteries, the 
minarets fine as lace and lofty as fountains, towards 


148 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


the famous city, lying like a half-moon on the edge 
of the waters : the city which had been his birth- 
place. His schooner, with the frigates which formed 
her escort on this visit of ceremonial, wound through 
the narrow channels of the passage which was as a 
bone amongst dogs to the western Powers, and, 
entering on the Mare Magnum, in due time he 
saw the long blue line of the Helianthine hills. 

c My country ! ’ he murmured, with that pride of 
possession and humility of filial love, between which 
the patriot’s affection is divided. But then, he 
thought, was it in truth his country ? Were hybrids, 
such as he and his, truly the sons of any land, with 
any right to say c My race, my tongue, my country’ ? 
Was not the poorest peasant born on that earth, 
under these olive-trees, by that sea, or on those hills,' 
more really a son of the soil than he, mongrel that 
he was, with the blood of many nationalities in him, 
bred in and in, but cross-bred ? 

Helios was before him, like a silver cup lying in 
the lap of the calm waters. It was beautiful as a 
city in a mirage seen by a dying man. But there, on 
the sea-terraces of the Soleia, paced armed sentinels ; 
on the quays rode armed carabineers ; in the streets 
and lanes city guards hunted beggars and children 
and dogs; at the gates waited weary and dusty 
cattle, horses, mules, with their peasant drivers 
blocked in a mass, one on another, whilst the Octroi 
officials ransacked, weighed, cursed and bullied ; in 
the dreary factories, with their long lines of windows, 
multitudes toiled in the joyless, monotonous, me- 
chanical toil with which modern inventions have 
cursed the workman ; in the fortress, with its glori- 
ous angel trumpeting to the skies, were a hundred 


VII 


HELIANTHUS 


i 49 

brazen mouths of cannon turned night and day on to 

her M^ ded . q u art ? rS Wf ! ence evolution might raise 
her Medusa s head ; and in its arsenals were closely 
packed millions on millions of cases of ammunition 
of the newest and the deadliest sort. Was not 
Helios in all her beauty like a fair woman with a 
cancer in her womb ? 

He was aroused from his meditations by the ap- 
proach towards his yacht of three barges, occupied 

by a deputation of welcome from the municipality of 
tne city. Syndic, assessors, councillors, and notabil- 
ities were crowded on board them in one of those 
servile, useless, and senseless ceremonies which dog 
the steps and poison the lives of princes, and degrade 
the citizens concerned in them into panders, parrots 
and puppets. r * 

I am going back to my harness/ thought 
Uthyris, as he saw the scarlet and gold robes of the 
Mayor, gorgeous in the sunlight of the gangway. 

Must you come out to meet me with the bit and 
the bridle ? O garrulous and servile fools ! Cannot 
you spend your time in the innumerable duties which 
call to you in vain ? Go, take your robes, and your 
scarves, and your vellum, and your froth, and your 
platitudes, and your protestations elsewhere. Be 
men, not crawling sycophants !’ 

He received them with coldness and visible im- 
patience ; . he replied to their address briefly and 
with weariness; his own gentlemen were surprised 
and disquieted, but the deputation did not perceive 
that they were unwelcome ; they were surrounded 
by the clouds of their own incense, giddy with the 
gazes of their own self-adoration ! Servility is, to 
the servile, a self-engendered gas which intoxicates. 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. VII 


150 


They were enamoured of their own abasement as 
women are of their own petty vanities. They found 
delight and honour even in their own humiliation. 

H is father and his brothers took this form of 
sycophancy seriously, as a meet attitude on the part 
of the public and a correct obeisance to themselves. 
But Othyris could not do so. To his temperament 
and opinions, his own manhood was lowered by the 
abasement of theirs. A common humanity made 
him feel himself degraded by their miserable servility. 
They were men well-to-do in the world, well fed, 
well clothed, well housed, well educated, as education 
is considered in modern life ; they had no excuse for 
their own self-chosen degradation, for the wretched 
self-imposed prostration which they sought with 
such avidity. It hurt the dignity of his own self- 
respect to see theirs so debased ; but their hides 
were so thick, their vision so oblique, their paltry 
pride so obtuse, that they could not even be taught 
what self-respect meant. 


CHAPTER VIII 


On the night of ElinTs return from his mission, 
which was the eve of the Feast of the Ascension, 
a roar as of thunder, but sounding duller and 
slower .as it smote the ear, startled the sleeping 
population of Helios. An ancient building had 
suddenly collapsed, none knew from what cause; 
there was no visible reason for its end ; the air was 
calm, the waves were peaceful ; it had lived its life 
and fell, with no visible sign of decay or of age upon 
it. It had stood there for twelve centuries, having 
been erected during the Byzantine rule of the country. 
The Ivory Tower, or the Lily Tower, as it was called 
by the populace, was one of the most famous and 
poetic possessions of the city, standing conspicuously 
on the north-west shore of the Bay of Helios. It 
looked like one of the porcelain towers of China, 
for it was made of bricks enamelled white ; its form 
had the elegance of the minaret ; at its base was the 
sea, in its rear a wood of cypress and of laurels. 

The coast of Helianthus is never more beautiful 
than by night. On this night of the Ascension the 
city, until a late hour, was a crescent of artificial 
light. The watch-towers were crowned by cressets 
of fires. The quays and bridges were outlined with 
lamps, and, on the hills, many a village and villa 


1 5 2 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


glowed with points aflame, which heralded the advent 
of a religious feast in that union of pagan and Christian 
superstitions which formed the country’s creed. But 
where the Ivory Tower had stood, and had worn its 
diadem of flame on all such nights as this, there 
was darkness, and the only light came from the 
moon-rays shining on a great heap of dust and ashes, 
which covered the rocks and shelved down into the 
sea, like a huge grave, nameless and naked. Time 
would bring to cover it the short, sweet grass, the 
wild strawberry plant, the bramble and the dog-rose, 
the creeping thistle, the sweet-scented myrtle, the 
mosses, the daisies, the gold of the charlock and 
ragwort ; but it was now only a mountain of dust. 

‘ Is that all ? ’ said the King, when he heard the 
cause of the sound which had disturbed his slumbers. 
c I was afraid it was the powder magazine.’ 

To have lost even a few caissons of melenite 
would have seemed to him a much greater calamity 
than the ruin of any monument of art or relic of 
antiquity. 

The Ivory Tower had been a thing of beauty, 
its whiteness growing warm in the golden glow of 
sunrise, its lofty and slender grace saluted by returning 
mariners throughout twelve centuries, its sonorous 
chimes resounding through summer silence, and re- 
buking winter storm. It had been kept in repair for 
no other reason than its extreme beauty, or what the 
artistic world called beauty ; a great waste of money 
in the eyes of the monarch. For it had been an 
entirely useless thing, in the estimation of the ruler 
of Helianthus ; it had never been used as a granary, 
as a signal station, as an observatory, nor even as a 
Christian house of prayer. 


VIII 


helianthus 


*53 


Late ln the evening following on its fall, Othyris 
went by sea to view the ruins. During the day/the 
beach was crowded by throngs of townspeople, visit- 
mg the site of the disaster, who would have given 
him no peace had he gone there by daylight ; even 
by night it was necessary to go very late to avoid 
being mobbed by the people. 

The sky was lustrous with that radiance which 
the King would have considered so inferior to that 
of a searchlight. The moon was at the full, and 
Jove and Saturn were low on the southern horizon 
but Antares and Arcturus shone, higher in the 
heavens, in all their solar splendour and their menac- 
ing mystery. 

Happy those simple souls to whom the stars and 
planets are only lamps to steer by, hung up by the 
hand of God, thought Othyris, as a fishing-boat 
passed him leaning low down in the trough of the 
phosphorescent water. 


When he went ashore with one of his gentlemen, 
he felt as if he stood by the grave of a friend. The 
vast pile of ruined bricks and shattered enamels 
covered a wide area of the rocks, and the base was 
washed by the white, moonlit, rippling surge. 

. ^ ^ Hone, he thought, ‘ in half a century the 
ruin will be a green hill. Nature will have clothed 
it. Let us leave it alone/ 


The light from the round, golden moon was 
strong ; it shone on the face and form of a woman 
who was standing on a strip of beach which had been 
left untouched by the fallen materials. She was 
clpthed in black, and wore a black veil upon her 
head, after the manner of the women of the populace; 
she was young, and her profile was like that of the 


*54 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


Athene ; as she gazed upward it looked pure and 
clear as a cameo ; the nose straight, the upper lip 
short, the eyelashes long, the throat white and fine 
as in sculpture. 

‘ I have never seen her/ thought Othyris. c She 
is dressed like a woman of the people ; but her face 
and her form are those of a goddess.' 

She did not notice him ; she was absorbed in the 
spectacle of the ruin before her. 

‘ Oh, the pity of it ! ' she murmured, and her eyes 
were full of tears. 

Othyris uncovered his head. 

c The pity of it, indeed ! ' he said. 

She started, astonished to find any one so near, and 
her exclamation overheard ; she drew her veil more 
closely so as to conceal her features, and turned to 
leave the spot. 

c I come, Janos ! ' she cried to a man in a rowing- 
boat below. 

c Let me not drive you away,' murmured Othyris. 
c We have a common sorrow.' 

But she did not answer or look back ; she went 
on swiftly, noiselessly, with gliding grace along the 
strip of beach to where the boat waited in the 
surf. 

c Shall I make inquiries, sir ? ' murmured the 
courtier who accompanied Othyris. He had been 
before then sent on errands of identification. 

c No, no, on no account whatever,' said Othyris 
quickly. The little boat with the woman and the 
peasant was being sculled into deeper water, going 
outward and westward ; it made a black shadow 
on the silvery spaces of the moonlit sea for a while, 
then passed away into shadow and distance, and was 


VIII 


HELIANTHUS 


*55 


lost to sight. Was she the diva loca of the ruined 
shrine driven out into exile ? The fancy pleased 
Othyris. 

He took out the little sketch-book of silver point 
which he always carried with him, and drew her pro- 
file from memory by the light of the moon. 

Her memory haunted Othyris, brief as had been 
the passage of her swift and silent steps over the 
smooth sea-sand. He smiled at his own preoccupa- 
tion : truly, she had looked like a goddess drawn 
out from her sanctuary and not deigning longer to 
remain on earth. 

c I am a fanciful fool/ he said to himself ; but was 
it not better to feed on such fancies than to be 
drugged with absinthe, or to be drunk with war ? 
At least his fancies harmed no one, and cost nothing 
to the lives and to the savings of the nation. 

She had gone away across the moonlit water into 
the shadows where the sea was dark ; it was fitting 
that a divinity whose altars were in ruins should so 
pass away from the sight of a mere mortal ! 

c I think, sir, that the man who was rowing is a 
peasant of the Helichrysum hills, whom I have seen 
in the market/ murmured Sir Pandarus, behind him 
on the beach. Othyris silenced him with a gesture. 

Officious readiness in others to wait on his less 
noble desires had always aroused in him a strong 
disgust. 

‘ That the fox eats the dove is bad enough/ he 
said once ; ‘ but that lesser beasts should track and 
trap the doves, and bring them as offerings to the 
fox, is much worse/ 


Othyris did not forget the casta diva of the 


1 56 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


moonlit eve before the ruins of the Ivory Tower ; 
probably because she was the only woman who had 
ever eluded him. She was also of a wholly different 
type from any he had ever seen, and he had believed 
that he had seen every variety of class and breeding, 
of form and feature, in the sex. He could not assign 
her rank with any certainty. She had possessed 
the bearing of a patrician, the simplicity of a 
peasant, the placid grace of a goddess, the shyness of 
a startled nymph. She had fled from him over the 
sands like any Daphne from the Sun-god. 

He realised Montaigne’s truism, c elles nous bat tent 
mieux en fuyant comme les Scythes' He spent 
hours in the endeavour to record the vision of her, 
but he never succeeded in contenting himself. There 
were many hundreds of women in Helios who wore 
that severe nun-like costume, with the black veil, 
which at will could so successfully conceal the 
features. The lowest female classes were gay 
with colour as a butterfly or a tulip ; but the 
industrial classes, the grades between the populace 
and the middle classes, invariably wore the black 
veil and the black skirt, as she had done, and under 
the protection of that sombre garb could pass un- 
molested from one end to the other of the city. Yet 
he did not think that she belonged to that class ; the 
uncovered hand which had drawn together the folds 
of the veil was of fine and delicate shape, and the 
outline of her profile and throat had the purity of 
a classic cameo. 

But he knew that there were many old families, 
once patrician but now poor and obscure, who dwelt 
in the small coast-towns or in the recesses of the hills 
above; families of ancient lineage, of proud traditions, 


VIII 


HELIANTHUS 


1 57 


of strong prejudices, of uncomplaining poverty. She 
must, he thought, belong to one of those, and have 
been drawn out of her privacy by the loss of the 
Ivory Tower, which was so great a calamity to those 
who loved the old heroic past of Helianthus. Othyris 
knew nothing of those families, but he had always 
felt a great respect for them, beggared as they had 
been by the War of Independence, faithful to their 
traditions, and irreconcilable with what was to them 
a foreign monarchy, content to live in obscurity and 
penury, and unpurchasable by place or money ; they 
were the last remnant of the old republican and 
patriotic substratum of the country. 

Again and again he felt tempted to set some of 
the many panderers to his caprices on her quest; 
but he never took the decisive step. He felt as 
though it would be profanity. The likeness he had 
drawn of her from memory, her face and throat 
alone bathed in a flood of moonlight, seemed to say 
to him, c Let me be. I have given you an ideal. Is 
not that much in this world ? ’ 

It stood on an ebony easel, and he had fresh 
flowers set before it as on an altar. A sentimental 
folly, he knew, or so at least it would have seemed 
to other men ; but was it not of such fancies that 
the grace and charm of the most innocent affections 
were made ? 

To Othyris, who had been satiated by affections 
far from innocent, there was an infinite attraction in 
this illusive and spiritual beauty. 

‘ That is a beautiful head,’ said Gavroche, one day. 

‘ Who is the original ? ’ 

‘It is a Helianthine divinity,' replied Othyris. 

‘ It is a diva ignota. I know not her name . 9 


i 5 e 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


Tyras for once did not grin with his usual satyr’s 
smile. 

c Whoever she is, she is too good for mortal em- 
braces,’ he said. c What a fine artist you might be 
if you chose, Elim ; and how well you keep your 
own counsel ! My secrets slip out when I am drunk.’ 

There was, of course, an immediate agitation in 
the city for the rebuilding of the Ivory Tower. 
There are always numbers of people who are ready 
to profit in various ways by a public calamity. 

f It can never be rebuilt,’ said Othyris, to those 
who approached him on the subject. 

Every one was astonished at such an impression in 
a lover of the arts ; that he should say so surprised 
even his father. 

c What do you mean ? Why cannot it be rebuilt ? ’ 
he asked. c Do you mean that the foundations have 
subsided ? That the rocks are unsound ? ’ 

c No, sir,’ replied his son. 

c What do you mean, then ? ’ 

c I mean that there is no longer amongst men the 
mental or moral power to produce such a thing. 
There is no longer the reverence, the patience, or 
the devotion necessary.’ 

The King twirled his moustaches with unutterable 
contempt. 

‘ I supposed you meant some practical obstacle ! 
If the resources of modern invention are not equal to 
renew the constructions of ignorant ages, progress is 
vain.’ 

c It is vain indeed, sir,’ said his son. 

This seemed so preposterous to his father that he 
had scarcely patience to continue the conversation. 


VIII 


HELIANTHUS 


J 59 


c Vain — vain ? ’ he muttered angrily. c With the 
immense resources of modern mechanical and hy- 
draulic power it would certainly be very easy to ’ 

He left the sentence, as he left most of his phrases, 
to complete itself in the superior eloquence of 
silence. 

c Something would no doubt be erected in five years, 
in ten, in twenty/ replied Othyris. c But it would 
not be that which we have lost. The Ivory Tower 
of Isma was one of the artistic marvels of the world ; 
a hundred and seventy years were occupied in the 
building of it ; that is proved by the Coptic manu- 
scripts of the Ismaian monastery/ 

His father by a puff of smoke indicated the value 
of such statements in his sight. 

c Because all the materials were brought by rowers, 
in galleys, and were carried up on slaves’ shoulders, 
as the bricks were for the Pharaohs’ Pyramids,’ said 
the King, with the profound contempt which he felt 
for such primitive means. c A hundred or more 
steam-tugs would bring all the substances to be used, 
to-day, direct from the quarries or the foundries by 
water ; and high-pressure engines would at once 
raise them into position/ 

Othyris was silent. 

c That is, if it be worth while to rebuild a mere 
belfry?’ added his father. c The public seem to 
desire some newer kind of erection. I have sug- 
gested a lighthouse.’ 

c With an electric lantern, revolving behind red 
glass ? ’ 

c Precisely,’ said the monarch, who approved the 
suggestion, but was suspicious of the sarcastic tone 
in which it was uttered. 


i6o 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


f Your wishes, sir, will of course be law to the 
Committee/ said Othyris. 

c Humph ! said the King. c You are not on it ? 9 
f No, sir, I declined to be so/ 

‘ Why ? ’ 

c Because I should be unquestionably in a minority; 
a minority perhaps of one/ 

‘ Because you would oppose those who will be rep- 
resentative of my views ? ’ 

( It is because I could not venture to do so, sir, 
and because I could not either dissemble my own 
views, that I have requested them not to place my 
name on the Committee. I ventured to do this 
without referring so small a matter to your Majesty/ 
If I order you to assume the chairmanship of 
the Committee ? 7 he said, after a pause. 

I must no doubt obey ; but I would entreat 
your Majesty not to place me in the painful position 
of being compelled to dissent publicly from views 
which are known to be favoured by yourself/ 

The King made a guttural exclamation, rendered 
unintelligible by his teeth being closed on his cigarette. 
He lighted a fresh one, and dismissed his son and 
the subject. 

He. would have had great pleasure in placing 
Ehm m that or any other difficult position, but he 
relt that the finesse and the obstinacy of his son 
would be more than a match for his own ; they had 
been so before then. J 

He felt that Elim’s deference and obedience 
went just so far as Elim’s own convictions went of 
what was due from him, and incumbent upon him 
and went no farther ; and that any attempt at coercion 
would always and irrevocably fail. Elim was a fool 


VIII 


HELIANTHUS 


161 


in many ways, his father thought, but there was grit 
in him. 

It was this in Othyris which beyond all other 
things incensed the King ; this deference in form and 
tone, coupled with opposition in reality. He had 
rarely been able to accuse his second son of any want 
of deference either in manner or in act ; yet he was 
always conscious of an actual independence of judg- 
ment which entirely escaped him. 

‘It was the training of that beast Basil which 
made him like this/ he thought now, as Othyris 
withdrew. He had never disliked any one more 
than his brother-in-law Basil, who had, he thought, 
thwarted and irritated him throughout life, and after 
death still annoyed him perpetually through that vast 
fortune, which by its bequest made its present pos- 
sessor so largely independent of him. 

He had not patience to pursue the subject with 
his son ; but when the Minister of Fine Arts next 
had audience with him, and ventured to speak of the 
matter, he suggested to that harassed and bewildered 
official that an iron lighthouse should be erected in 
place of the perished tower. 

‘ If you try to renew the past you will please 
nobody/ he said ; and in this he was correct. ‘ Be 
frankly utilitarian ; you will at least please utilitarians. 
The tower was a beautiful thing, or at least people 
said so, but it was absolutely useless. Replace it by 
something without beauty, but useful.’ 

The Minister of Fine Arts felt that he himself 
and his Department must be equally useless in the 
estimation of his sovereign. 


M 


CHAPTER IX 


A few days later Othyris had to preside at a 
charity meeting in Helios for the relief of the 
famine and general distress in the country. To speak 
in public was always disagreeable to him ; and this 
kind of gathering never found any favour in his sight. 
He disbelieved in its efficiency as a means of doing 
good, and he thought the boastful philanthropy 
which set it on foot rather more discreditable than 
no philanthropy at all. He knew that most of those 
present would go to see himself ; would offer their 
donations because they desired to look well in his 
sight; and that nine-tenths of the crowd gathered 
there would care no more for the sufferings of the 
dying and the dead by hunger, cold, and misery, 
than a gourmet cares for the sufferings of the craw- 
fish or the turtle which give him his patties and his 
soup at dinner. 

c It is waste of words, waste of breath, waste of 
wrath,’ he thought, as he rose to speak, and he knew 
that what he was about to say would be hateful to 
his hearers. 

‘ Gentlemen/ said Othyris, after the usual greetings 
of courtesy, the statistics of lives and deaths, and the 
calculation of required monies, and the necessary 
accompaniment of conventional phrases without 


CHAP. IX 


HELIANTHUS 


1 63 


which no public meeting would be orthodox or even 
possible, — ‘ Gentlemen, what can be said of these 
modern civilisations of which modern language 
boasts so greatly ? The world is rich, exceedingly 
rich; for waste, for pomp, for display, for self- 
indulgence, for armaments of all kinds, millions, 
billions, trillions, are always accumulating, always 
forthcoming. Yet men and women and children are 
found dead of hunger in every land, from the snow 
plains of the Septentriones to our own classic hills of 
Helianthus, from the crowded cities of Europe to 
the rice-fields of the East and the gold-fields of the 
West. What progress can be alleged whilst famine 
stalks through every quarter of the globe ? Whilst 
you and I eat rich food three times a day, and rare 
birds and beasts are paid their weight in bullion that 
they may pass into our kitchens, human beings, 
ofttimes through no fault of their own, suffer the 
torture of hunger through days and weeks and 
months, then drop down and die, worn out by the 
unequal struggle. 

‘ You will reply that this is inevitable ; that it is 
the fault of no person and of no system ; that it is 
the natural result of laws beyond men’s control, that 
the successful wax fat, and the obscure perish for 
want of what they have not had luck, or talent, or 
perhaps dishonesty enough, to gain. 

c Gentlemen, it is in this reply, the usual, the 
orthodox, the stereotyped reply of both the capitalist 
and the political economist, that the condemnation 
of modern civilisation lies. Civilisation has solved 
no one of the problems of life. It has overfed the 
minority ; it has underfed the majority ; and a large 
proportion it has not fed at all. 


164 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c Victor Hugo, in one of his sonorous but fallacious 
phrases, has said : c< He who opens a school closes a 
prison.” This sounds well and means nothing. 
The ill-digested and desultory education of the day 
is the recruiting sergeant of the gaols. That educa- 
tion is alone healthy and profitable which tends to 
make the human creature do well what necessity and 
circumstances require him to do at all. But although 
the technical schools may, perhaps, do this techni- 
cally, general education, early education, do nothing 
of the kind ; morally, the education of the schools is 
neutral where it is not mischievous. 

c In a great nation overseas, where the govern- 
ment is nominally democratic, where education is 
general and enforced, and where every child can 
read and write, lynch law is the frequent redresser of 
injuries, and mobs burn accused persons alive and 
without trial : what has education done for humanity 
in that great nation ? You will say that there good 
food has been of no use, for the lynching mobs are 
for the most part recruited from well-fed persons ; 
but they drink still more than they eat — and drink’ 
the curse of man, is in one form or another almost 
universal in that hemisphere. In all the nations of 
our own hemisphere drinking and hunger reign side 
by side. Called absinthe, or beer, or brandy, or 
wine, or gin, or what it may, it fills with its worship- 
pers the dubs, the music halls, the cafes, the cellars, 
the public-houses, the boulevards. Of what use is 
civilisation ? It does not turn away one man in a 
million from ^ the threshold of the drinking shops. 
The children’s bread is given away to buy the poison 
of chemically prepared toxines for their fathers and, 
alas ! too often for their mothers also. 


IX 


HELIANTHUS 


i6 S 


‘ There is a country well known to us all, lying on 
cool northerly waters, great in story, strong in enter- 
prise, foremost in commerce ; she was a mere bar- 
barian when Helianthus was the glory of the arts 
and the Venus Victrix of the then known world ; 
now she is far greater than we are. Yet in her 
metropolis, the largest and the richest of the world, 
miles on miles of streets are occupied by what in her 
language are called gin-palaces ; crowded every 
night of the year by half-mad throngs of men and 
women of the people, insane with drink and spend- 
ing their last coin upon it. Yet she presumes to 
send out her religious envoys to convert the 
heathen ! 

‘Gentlemen, there are other cancers in the body 
politic of which it would take many hours to make 
the diagnosis. Take one only : the deadly trades. 
Many trades exist, enrich the manufacturer, and con- 
tribute to the comfort or the luxury of society, in 
the pursuit of which the man or woman em- 
ployed in them dies almost certainly before reaching 
his or her thirty-fifth year. Reflect upon this fact. 
Do you seriously think that the capitalists who 
make their fortune by trades which cause this 
mortality amongst the workers are really so greatly 
superior to the Helianthine of two thousand years 
ago, who killed a slave to feed the fish of his 
piscina ? 

c You murmur? Well, sirs, reflect instead. 

c In the course of last year I visited our classic 
and romantic island of Philyra, daughter of Oceanus, 
nourished on sun and sea and burning lava, as she 
has been from all time. I saw the chief sulphur 
mines of the isle. I need not remind you, sirs, of 


1 66 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


the many and precious uses to which sulphur is put ; 
or that the sulphur of Philyra is esteemed the best 
in the world. Has it ever occurred to you to ask 
how that sulphur is obtained ? It is chiefly obtained 
through the labour of young children, whose eyes 
smart and grow blind under the stinging irritation 
of the mineral they carry up and down the ladders 
all day long. Was it worse, gentlemen, to sell for 
slaves the fair-haired children of the conquered 
barbarians here in the market-place of Helios ? I 
doubt it. These children are slaves; they cannot 
escape from their lot ; they are as helpless as their 
sisters sold for a trifle to follow their foreign buyer 
into the cities of other lands to gain money for him 
by their suffering and debasement. All these young 
and innocent lives are mercilessly sacrificed to the 
interests of others. One can do no more for them 
than for slaves ; they are slaves in all except the 
name. What faces one ? A vested interest ; the 
force of commerce ; the might of trade. 

c Sulphur is of great utility — of more utility than 
such children’s lives. It must be procured in the 
cheapest way possible. The cheapest way is 
to use children. What can I do to save them? 
Nothing. Nothing more than I can do to stop the 
seismic convulsions in the bowels of the earth. 

I may call meetings, upbraid their employers, rebuke 
their parents, call on the Press to rouse the public. 
What use is what I do ? It is none. Regulations 
are made, leading articles are written, ladies weep, 
orators declaim, and then it all — the misery of it — 
goes back into the same groove. Trades must not 
be interfered with ; commerce must not be ham- 
pered ; sulphur must not be made dear. 


IX 


HELIANTHUS 


167 


c It is one of the chief supports of the trade of 
Helianthus. Brigs and merchantmen carry it out of 
our ports all over the world. It has innumerable 
uses, immeasurable values; and the children — who 
have no value, for there are so many of them — the 
children must pass and perish. Gentlemen, what is 
a civilisation worth in which such things are possible, 
are indeed of habitual occurrence, of accepted usage ? 
Sirs, I doubt greatly whether the greatest criminal 
amongst us is the criminal who meets his fate in the 
prisoner’s dock, and not the rich and prosperous 
person who, seated in his arm-chair, signs his 
cheques with his gold pen, eats and drinks, and 
enjoys and praises this world as the most admi- 
rable issue of the intellect of man and of the will 
of God. 

c It is impossible for the governing classes to have 
influence on the governed, because our morality (or 
the self-interest which we substitute for it) is a mass 
of contradictions, a chaotic jumble of anomalies. 
We condemn murder, but we deify war. We kill 
the criminal who poisons one person ; we do not 
touch the manufacturer who poisons many workmen. 
We condemn theft, but we approve annexation. 
We punish a carter cruel to his horse ; we applaud a 
general who kills two hundred thousand horses. 
We imprison the drover who wounds a bullock ; we 
decorate the contractor who tortures on land and sea 
a million of cattle. We abhor alcohol in the throats 
of the poor ; we find it a perfume in the mouths of 
the rich. We worship education, and we leave chil- 
dren to be prostituted in brothels and worked to 
death in mines. We imprison the cut-purse; we 
honour and decorate the usurer. We have no clear 


1 68 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


knowledge, or consistent treatment of crime. When 
it is naked and isolated, we punish it savagely ; when 
it is cloaked, and goes in well-armed companies, we 
do not dare to touch it ; we take off our hats to it, 
we seat it in our banqueting-halls. 

c You will say that this has always been so in all 
ages. Perhaps that is the reason why crime has al- 
ways been general. 

c It is impossible for the masses to be impressed by 
rulers and teachers who, whatever their theories, do 
in practice show that crime is, in their code, no crime 
at all if it be large enough and successful enough to 
dominate its generation. The multitude does not 
reason, but it perceives, if slowly ; it feels, if dully ; 
it is stirred, if obscurely ; and is guided by conclusions 
which it draws by blind instinct, as the mollusc sucks 
in sea-water and sunlight. It is unconsciously 
penetrated by a sense of the untruth and the hy- 
pocrisy of the morality which is preached to it, and 
of the laws which are laid down for it. For that 
reason the one has little influence on it, and the other 
has little awe for it ; and after thousands of years of 
various kinds of successive civilisations and of con- 
tradictory religions, we see that the political and 
social forces of the world are absolutely impotent, 
either to prevent crimes, or to lead criminals back to 
virtue. The fault lies more with the rulers than 
with the ruled/ 

A dead silence followed on his concluding words. 
They were all thinking: Tf he should ever be king, 
good Lord, deliver us ! ’ 

His speech grated on the nerves of his hearers ; 
for the most part, they felt that it was unjust to be 
summoned by a chairman who was a prince of the 


HELIANTHUS 


IX 


169 


reigning House, and then be made to listen to a dis- 
course worthy of a Liebknecht or a Karl Marx. 

The enunciation of such opinions made a lively 
sensation in Helios, and caused a great scandal in 
society. Nothing is so dangerous or so detested as 
an attack on vested interests. All the superior 
classes, all the users of gold pens, all the comfortable 
and complacent persons to whom civilisation was a 
Bona Dea, mother of prosperity, of invention, of 
luxury and of good government, felt themselves out- 
raged in their most sacred sentiments. 

A cancer in the milk-white breast of their god- 
dess ! What blasphemy ! 

Any other orator than a son of the King would 
have been howled down into silence at the first 
word. 

Onnepreche qu aux convertis. Othyris knew that. 
He knew that respect for his rank alone restrained 
his hearers from comments far from complimentary 
to him; he read their astonishment and their dis- 
approbation on their features, beneath the surface- 
smiles of courteous urbanity ; he was well aware 
what inane self-complacency he had troubled and 
startled. 

The reports by stenographers of this speech, 
which so entirely offended all prosperity and af- 
fronted privilege, were by superior order withdrawn 
from publication in the Press, and a few common- 
place words were substituted for it in all reports of 
the meeting. 

The suppression made the Ministry nervous. 
They did not care to offend a person who was so 
nearly in direct succession to the throne ; but the 
actual occupant of the throne had crossed out 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


170 

heavily with a red pencil the proofs of the speech 
when submitted to him and had ordered its entire 
suppression, and no resistance was possible. 

‘That you suppressed my speech was a matter of 
course/ said Othyris, when he next met Michael 
Soranis, who had succeeded Kantakuzene as Prime 
Minister when the latter was defeated over the 
scheme for the fortification of the Hundred Isles. 
‘ But I think you should not have put other words 
into my mouth. Mon verre est petit, mais je bois 
dans mon verre' 

‘ But your Royal Highness makes others drink, 
alas ! ’ murmured with a sigh the harassed politician. 

‘ Do I make others drink ? ’ wondered Othyris, as 
he passed onward across the great courtyard of the 
House of Deputies. He did not think so. It is 
very hard to make others drink, unless they have a 
taste for the draught you offer, and in that case they 
get it without you. 

The Crown Prince was, of course, greatly 
scandalised at the speech. ‘ It is a direct incitement 
to the poor to plunder the rich/ he said with horror. 

‘ What would he propose instead of the labour of 
the poor if that were abolished? Everything is 
done which can be done to diminish the evil effects 
of the deadly trades ; the trades themselves must 
exist ; no children anywhere are forced to work at 
them. If the parents send them, that is not the 
fault of the masters or of the overseers. What 
would he substitute instead of the children ? The 
commerce of the world cannot be stopped because 
some suffer/ 

No one should say that rich men steal; they 
accumulate. Even so, Governments do not ever 


IX 


HELIANTHUS 


171 


steal ; they annex. Everything is excused when it 
is engros , or en bloc : you kill one man, you go to the 
scaffold or the hulks ; you kill fifty thousand men, 
you are decorated, pensioned, honoured, deified. 
Certainly you do ; what could be more right and 
proper ? The whole question lies in your quantities. 
The whole matter is one of degree. 


CHAPTER X 

In the autumn of the year, King John was 
suddenly taken ill, for almost the first time in his 
life, except when he had suffered from an occasional 
surfeit of the pleasures of the table with its conse- 
quent indigestion. He had contracted a slight cold 
in paying an unexpected night-visit to rouse up a 
distant garrison, and with the chill of it upon him 
had gone to a monster battue, where he had 
slaughtered the birds and beasts driven past him till 
his arms ached. The dense autumn woods were 
damp and vaporous, and in them his cold was in- 
creased, so that it became bronchitis. He was never 
in any danger, but the mere idea of his malady 
caused depression in the Exchanges of Europe ; why, 
it would probably have puzzled the stockholders and 
the publicists to say, for if he had died, his eldest 
son would have succeeded him peaceably, and would 
have continued to govern on precisely the same 
lines, with the placid and resolute composure of a 
man who knows that Heaven keeps his powder dry 
for him. 

Ignorant people imagine that the law having 
settled that the King never dies, it cannot be a mat- 
ter of great concern who is, or who has ceased to be, 
the King ; since, if the personality change, the office 
remains unchanged. Even courtiers admit this, 

172 


CHAP. X 


HELIANTHUS 


l 73 


since they say, c The King is dead ; 
King ! * 


long live the 


Fortunately the next day all the newspapers of 
Europe were able to print in capital letters the happy 
fact that the attack was not dangerous, since King 
John had been able to eat some spoonfuls of chicken 
puree. His kingdom was intensely interesting to all 
the other Powers, because each of them wanted it; 
and it had an equal interest for politicians as for 
speculators, because its geographical position and its 
trimming policy made it an unknown quantity in 
the possible event of a great war; politicians and 
speculators both being keenly aware that Treaties of 
Alliance, like all other contracts, hold good only 
until some pen-knife makes a slit in them, and are 
inviolable only until one or other of the contracting 
parties tears them up and dances on their pieces. 

The Crown Prince was assiduous in his attendance 
at his father’s bedside. Like every person conscious 
of considerable superiority in himself to all others, he 
could not but be sensible that life in denying him the 
highest opportunities was unjust. He would not 
have believed in himself as he did, if he had not 
believed that he alone was destined to govern 
Helianthus with that force and firmness which the 
mingled idiocy and wickedness of its inarticulate 
multitudes required. But he had an extreme re- 
spect for his father. 

His father, he considered, was an admirable ruler ; 
although in the recesses of his mind, Theo could not 
but be conscious that he himself would be a still 
better one. 

His father did yield sometimes ; Theo knew that 
he himself would never yield, on any question what- 


174 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


soever, or to any adviser ever born of man. If 
any one had ever presumed to point out to him as 
a deterrent the fate of Louis XVI., he would have 
replied that Louis would have lived and died at the 
Tuileries or Versailles if he had only known how to 
use the guillotine properly on his subjects, instead of 
waiting till his subjects used it on him ; which per- 
haps is true, for if he had been quicker than the 
nation in making the axe his ally, there would prob- 
ably have been no Terror, no Consulate, no Empire. 
Theo put away from him as whispers of the devil 
those irrepressible desires to be himself the ruler 
which assailed him, and obtruded themselves on the 
reverential sorrow with which he heard that the lobe 
of his father’s left lung was inflamed as well as the 
left bronchial tube. Slightly, only very slightly, the 
physicians affirmed, so slightly indeed that the in- 
flammation was almost imperceptible ; perhaps even 
totally imperceptible, thought the nurse, whose 
experience in hospital wards had made her sceptical 
of medical assertions. 

Four nights were passed by the Crown Prince, 
fully dressed, in a chamber adjoining the King’s. 
He was respectfully assured that such a vigil was not 
necessary, but he was a man who would never allow 
his duty to be dictated to him even by so infallible 
a pope as a doctor. During that semi-slumber, that 
mixture of confused dreams and congested reflections 
which accompany such vigils, he could not but see 
as in a vision the country as it would be when it 
should have passed under his own rule — a country 
shaved, cropped, drilled, put in irons, fed by rule, 
lodged by order, made clean by Act of Parliament, 
kept virtuous by regulations, with an inexorable 


X 


HELIANTHUS 


l 7S 


hygiene and an inoculated virtue ; its foremost privi- 
lege and duty being to carry the musket, its second 
being to pay all taxes with humble alacrity on the 
days ordained. 

Theo of Gunderode never doubted his own 
infallibility, his own semi-divinity, his own absolute 
preciousness to the nation which, without him and 
his, would, he was certain, be lost in a whirlpool of 
blood and a chaos of infidelity. It never came 
within his mental vision to suppose that he was an 
ordinary man with less than the usual allowance of 
brain and more than the usual allowance of obsti- 
nacy, whose life or whose death was entirely imma- 
terial to the world except so far as the fables and 
falsehoods of other men’s follies had lifted him up 
into unreal values. 

Such stupidity is, indeed, not without its uses to 
persons of exalted station, as it prevents them from 
ever doubting their own suitability for such exalta- 
tion. No shadow or shred of such a doubt had ever 
visited the mind of the Crown Prince ; a mind made 
of stout impenetrable stuff, as minds which are com- 
fortable to their possessors always are. He was as 
honestly convinced of his own utility and indis- 
pensability to his country as a mother is convinced 
of hers to the foetus she carries in her womb. The 
country could only live, breathe, have its being, 
through him and his family ; remove himself and 
his family, where would the country be ? Broken 
up under some foreign rule, no doubt, or swamped 
in socialism under his brother Elim. He himself 
was the only possible Vice-Regent of God in Helian- 
thus. Doubtless he overrated his own qualities ; and 
in his own estimate called obstinacy firmness, igno- 


176 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


ranee wisdom, foolhardiness courage, stupidity supe- 
riority, brutality virility, and so on, even as ordinary 
mortals baptize their defects as excellences. But 
this could only be proved when he came to the 
throne, and so long as he lived there would certainly 
be always one person to whom it would never be 
proven, namely, himself. 

Whilst he kept his vigils, and persuaded himself 
that he was absorbed in his anxiety and apprehension, 
his brother Othyris was haunted by a different kind 
of disquietude. If his father died, he himself would 
be next heir to the throne. The present illness 
brought this possibility home to him with startling 
force. 

Therefore, if in the innermost soul of the Crown 
Prince there was a lurking, secret sense of disappoint- 
ment when King John got well enough to eat some 
roast pheasant instead of chicken broth, Othyris 
was, without any mingled feelings, unfeignedly glad ; 
and a great apprehension was lifted off his mind 
when his father went for his first drive in the 
avenues of the public park, showing a complete 
convalescence by the size of his cheroot. The 
people cheered the King as he passed (for in every 
crowd there are always many who are good-natured, 
and many more who are snobs) ; and the sovereign 
thought to himself: c They know what they would 
have lost if I had died/ To him it seemed natural 
and fitting that they should be grateful to himself, 
his physicians, and Providence for the favour of his 
recovery. 

> There was a Thanksgiving Service in honour of 
his recovery at the Cathedral ; that great and fa- 
mous building which had been in its earliest years 


X 


HELIANTHUS 


177 


a temple of Zeus, and in its present composite archi- 
tecture was Classic, Byzantine, Renaissance, holding 
a score of various and opposing styles in its mighty 
rambling mass, and sending forth its sonorous chimes 
over the city at its feet. The celebration was impos- 
ing in the mingled religious, secular, and military 
pomp and ceremony which characterised it. All the 
princes of the reigning House were, of course, pres- 
ent ; troops were massed in large numbers in the 
cathedral square ; the great bell of solid silver, only 
heard on supreme occasions, sent its sweet, deep 
notes into the springtide; and a considerable num- 
ber of persons, chiefly women and children, were 
crushed and suffocated between the barricades cov- 
ered with crimson cloth, and the lines of armed 
soldiery and police. This is the human sacrifice 
which is as essential to the success of a modern 
triumph as decapitated heads rolling on the grass 
are necessary to the feasts of savage and misguided 
nations. 

The monarch, standing before the high altar, with 
his hand on his sword hilt, and the sunlight falling 
down from the golden dome on to the bald crown of 
his head, was an inharmonious central figure ; but all 
countries are used to that kind of incongruity. 
Even Caesar’s cranium did not wholly suit the laurel 
wreath. 

‘What is in his mind ? ’ wondered Othyris, as he 
stood a step behind his father, before that grand and 
glittering altar. ‘Gratitude? Faith? Desire to 
deserve renewed health ? Sentiment, tender and 
touching, of the city’s rejoicing ? Belief in the Deity 
to whom thanks and praise are being offered in his 
name by those lovely voices of the youthful choristers 

N 


i 7 8 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


and the vox humana of the noble organ ? * No : 
not any one of these emotions was likely to be felt 
by John of Gunderode. He was probably chafing 
at the length of the service, and feeling the impa- 
tience for food and drink of a hungry convalescent. 

The King drove home behind his beautiful white 
horses, holding his plumed casque on his knees, and 
bending his head to the people with more cordiality 
than usual. The enthusiasm of the population 
pleased him, and the vast crowds, kept in place by 
the soldiery, were guarantee to him that he could go 
to war when he pleased. For a war was the desire 
of his soul. 

In these days a country which has not a war on 
its hands is considered to be either numerically or 
financially weak ; probably both. King John had 
reigned thirty years and had sent his troops nowhere ; 
he had acquired no territory ; he had utilised none 
of the raw material which had been gathered and 
drilled so perseveringly, except, indeed, once when an 
expedition to a desert country had been planned and 
executed by the ambitious old Minister, Domitian 
Corvus, and had ended in the decimation of the 
Helianthine battalions by a ruler uncivilised and un- 
christian — a period of sad humiliation to the nation 
and the monarch. Ever since that painful period the 
King had no desire in his soul more strong and 
more difficult of realisation than his wish for war ; 
he would have been quite ready to send his troops 
to be cut to pieces in aid of one of his allies ; but 
Europe was at peace — that is, was armed to the 
teeth, but afraid to move. The only campaign 
which offered itself was one in alliance with Candor, 
in barbaric lands. 


X 


HELIANTHUS 


1 79 


The great and ancient kingdom of Candor, which 
had of late years called herself Imperia, because she 
thought it sounded finer in the ears of mankind 
and was told that it was philologically more correct, 
was a great friend to the newly-made kingdom of 
Helianthus. She did not call herself an ally, be- 
cause, whilst friendship engages to nothing, alliance 
compromises and may want a sword drawn; and 
Candor’s sword was always in use for herself alone, 
unsheathed, all the world over, preceding and pro- 
tecting her commerce and her religion. Candor 
liked to keep her hands free ; and to that wisdom 
she owed her eminence and vast extension. No 
doubt, to be every nation’s ally, as Julius was, 
comes to much the same thing in the end ; but the 
policy of Candor (otherwise Imperia) was the wiser : 
no Power could say that Candor had deceived it, for 
she never promised anything. 

Her sovereign and princes paid flattering visits to 
other countries, her fleets did the same ; her ambas- 
sadors were doubly discreet, because they were careful 
not to know the language of any country to which 
they were accredited ; she was always ready to lend 
out of her great riches, if the security given were 
good ; and her banks were the most solid in all the 
world. But her sword she would not draw in inter- 
national complications ; it was essentially a domestic 
instrument, and was generally only used on black, 
brown, and yellow bodies, which of course are not 
counted as true war-game any more than in sport 
rabbits are counted as tigers. At the present 
moment Candor was pushing on Helianthus to what 
she called expansion ; ordinary mortals call it con- 
quest. The synonym is not new ; it was in use in 


i8o 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


the time of the Caesars. King John thought expan- 
sion an admirable term, and an admirable thing ; 
and he did not perceive that whilst it was really so 
to the florid health, the full-blooded strength, 
the plethora of wealth, the masterful temper, and the 
energetic force of Candor herself, it was to the 
Helianthine realm and people, with their scanty 
resources, their insufficient population, and their 
enormous taxation, as injurious as blood-letting to a 
weak constitution. King John had visited hospitals 
to little purpose, for he had not learned to see the 
difference between robust health and anaemia. To 
him war always appeared a sanitary phlebotomy ; so, 
in despite of all precedent and good sense, he pre- 
pared to go to war or, as Candor called it, to colonise, 
to civilise, to open new markets, to change sandy 
wastes into rich cornfields. 

There was great activity in the ports, and the 
depots, and the barrack-yards ; the railway trains 
were full of recruits and men of the reserve huddled 
together like cattle in trucks; there was much 
speech-making on platforms, and spouting of vain- 
glorious periods ; and contractors were jubilant, get- 
ting rid of all their inferior goods at most superior 
prices. Helianthus, who had so much to learn and 
was frequently being boxed on the ears for her 
ignorance by her big sisters, was as a whole flattered 
by the idea that she could go a-colonising with her 
flag flying, as in the country districts her boys and 
girls went a-maying with their posies tied to poles. 
The enterprise was not to a great degree popular, 
but it was trumpeted by the Press, praised in the 
clubs, and held up to national admiration by fluent 
orators both in and out of Parliament and Senate. 


X 


HELIANTHUS 


1 8 1 


The King even sacrificed several days of blackcock 
and wild turkey shooting to contribute his quota to 
the national enthusiasm, and to do his part in offer- 
ing to the public the alcohol of a boastful vanity. He 
received in the throne-room a deputation of senators, 
deputies, and personages ; he wore full-dress uniform, 
his grandest Orders, and a jewelled sabre ; and he 
fully believed that he was doing his highest duty to 
the nation and the world in sacrificing himself thus 
in autumn days, when blackcock and wild turkeys 
might have been falling like rain before his breech- 
loader. He congratulated the deputation, the 
country, and himself, on the martial temper which 
(according to him) was growing up amongst the 
younger men ; and predicted that, under the favour- 
ing benignity of Providence, the Helianthines would 
become stronger and more powerful with every 
decade, and rise to true greatness in the history of 
modern nations. Great ! — what is the meaning of 
the adjective in the mouths of monarchs, of princes, 
and of statesmen ? A docile populace, pleased to 
beget sons for the slaughter ; ready to starve on its 
own hearths in order that the policy of its leaders 
may be victorious abroad ; veteran soldiers willing to 
leave their occupations and families to take up arms, 
and meekly accepting neglect and starvation on 
their return to their homes ; the flag flying in every 
far-away distant sphere, that the sweater may thrive 
and the goldbroker gorge ; the active army a sub- 
missive servant, equally ready to ravage a dark 
continent abroad, or to gag liberty at home ; the 
navy, a mighty tool always at hand to blockade, and 
bombard, and burn on any shore, wherever the 
potential traders at home require new marts, or a 


i 82 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


rival Power has gained a footing; an exchequer 
deep as the deep sea, into which fools pour their 
earnings meekly and trustfully, and the spendthrift 
State plunges ravenous hands unpunished — this is 
for a country to be great as modern monarchs and 
their ministers construe greatness. Should Helian- 
thus be behind her sister-nations in this kind of 
greatness ? Forbid it, Heaven ! 

‘ More whipped-cream flavoured with cura^oa,’ 
whispered Tyras ; and Othyris wondered in secret: 

‘ Does he really believe what he says ? He lies 
like truth.’ 

It is true that the power of self-delusion is 
enormous ; and men in high places are saturated 
with it as the drinker with a drug. 

The Crown Prince alone listened with a devout 
belief and admiration ; he would say just such things 
himself in future years. Great? Doubtless the 
country would be great — under himself. Great! 
The word seemed to boom through the air, 
thrice repeated as it had been in the sovereign’s 
harsh, rasping, authoritative tones. 

Othyris heard in it the grinding roll of cannon 
wheels, the tramp of young men going to their 
death, the crash of exploding shells, the rattle 
of emptying money-bags, the moans of widowed 
women, of fatherless children. 

King J°hn put off his uniform, and Orders, and 
jewelled sabre, dressed himself in a morning suit of 
tweed, and sat down to his noonday breakfast. 
His conscience was satisfied, and his vanity, which 
mattered more, was pleased. To speak well was not 
a talent by any means natural to him. In learning 
to speak in public he had contended with many 


X 


HELIANTHUS 


183 


personal defects ; a confused articulation, a slowness 
of utterance, a halting memory, a tendency to stam- 
mer ; but he had vanquished these impediments, 
although, he could not alter the unmelodious tones 
of his voice, which he had, however, disciplined into 
a certain imperiousness befitting his position, at least 
in his own eyes and in those of his courtiers. He 
was gratified at the consciousness that he had spoken 
well, and that his speech was being telegraphed to 
the four quarters of the globe. It gave him the 
sense of being a great monarch ; of being one of 
those who make the fine weather and the sunshine 
of the world. Also, as far as an ardent desire could 
be felt m his phlegmatic breast, he wished to try his 
troops in real war, as a boy, having played with toy 
soldiers till he is tired, longs to be at more serious 
pastimes with powder and shot. And as scientific 
professors make their experiments, as it is said, in 
corf ore vili , so he was glad to make his first trial 
of the capacity of his army on the inferior oppo- 
nents of barbaric nations. For in the recesses of 
his soul he was not sure of his troops ; and being a 
shrewd and capable person he was aware that his 
commissariat was by no means to be trusted in the 
all-important office of supplies. 

But, alas ! for the illusions of international friend- 
ships, Candor (alias Imperia) changed her mind, 
because she had changed her administration. More- 
over Gallia set up her back and showed her teeth, 
like the fiery creature she is, and the new govern- 
ment in the great realm of Candor was not disposed 
to irritate her. Gallia was her foe, and Helianthus 
was her friend; but nations, like individuals, must 
throw over their friends sometimes, so Candor threw 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


over the Helianthines. Her diplomatists caused 
them to understand that the moment had not yet 
arrived when they could go a-conquering as their 
villagers went a-maying ; that it would be wiser to 
furl the flags and untie the posies. Helianthus 
obeyed, la mort dans V ame. She was not strong 
enough to stand alone, and to go by herself into 
the sandy wastes of the land of ruby mines and 
tetze-flies. 

The King was bitterly enraged, painfully morti- 
fied ; and he could show neither rage nor mortifica- 
tion. He could shoot blackcock and wild turkeys, 
indeed, all day long and every day ; but there are 
hours of chagrin and humiliation when even the 
gun fails to console the sportsman. 

The ships were unloading ; the trains were taking 
the regiments back to their home-quarters ; the 
flags were being rolled up and put on stands like 
umbrellas ; the hundreds and thousands of mules 
and pack-saddles collected were being sold at a 
tenth part of their cost ; the barracks were hearing 
only the everyday squeak of the bugles. The in- 
fluential organs of the Press put Bellona back in a 
drawer and set up in her stead her rival Pax ; even 
as the cheap toy-sellers packed up all their little 
military playthings, and instead sold ducks and 
geese, or cats and mice. Only the contractors, 
although disappointed, were consoled; because if 
the stores which they had so profusely provided 
rotted uselessly in the warehouses of the State, the 
State had already paid for them at ten times their 
value. 

They would not have the hoped-for pleasure of 
supplying for two or three years, to an entire army, 


X 


HELIANTHUS 


185 


musty flour, mouldy rice, ilex berries for coffee, 
chemicals for liquors, and all the other luxuries of 
civilisation ; but in a smaller way they always did 
a good business in these things with the com- 
missariat. 

# abandonment of her conquering (alias colo- 
ring) .projects gave a bad blow beneath the belt 
to Helianthine credit, and sent her stocks down on 
the Exchanges of her neighbours. She had con- 
tracted large war loans for which she would have 
to pay heavily for probably many years to come. 
Financiers were unkind to her, and made her feel 
her want of capital and of independence. Her mili- 
tary men were disappointed and sullen. The in- 
crease in her taxation had no equivalent in flattered 
national vanity. She had not even the loot of a 
barbaric palace, or a captive dusky king with a huge 
belly and a prehensile jaw, to show in her cities 
to her populace. Gallia mocked her with unkind 
raillery, and Candor promised her better luck next 
time. Helianthus realised the bitter wisdom of the 
prayer, c Save me from my friends, dear God ; from 
my enemies I can defend myself.' 

The uncivilised monarch who had escaped the 
blessings of civilisation at the cannon’s mouth, sent 
to Helios some living lions and ostriches as a pres- 
ent to the ruler of Helianthus, some ivory, ebony, 
and uncut gems ; but these humble offerings have 
not about them the glory and glamour of booty, and 
gave no pleasure to the Gunderode or the populace. 
They would have been visited by delighted multi- 
tudes if they had been brought in cages and cases by 
returning and victorious troop-ships ; but as mere 
signs of a grateful barbarian’s relief at having escaped 


1 86 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. X 


invasion and education, they lacked interest ; and 
the lions roared and raged in impotent wretchedness, 
and the ostriches rubbed their plumes off against the 
bars of their cages almost disregarded. 

£ Why, whether in our pleasure or our pain, are 
the poor beasts and birds always sacrificed ? ’ thought 
Othyris. It is a question which many have asked 
before him, but to which none have ever had any 
reply. 


CHAPTER XI 


Great news was at this period being circulated 
throughout Helianthus. 

The Crown Princess was pregnant after a sterility 
of ten years ! Medical men certified the fact. 
Journalists glorified it. Ministers went on missions 
of announcement ; ambassadors came on errands 
of felicitation. The successful advent of the fifth 
month was proclaimed to an expectant and a de- 
lighted people ; or a people ordered to be delighted, 
as they were ordered to be virtuous, by Act of Parlia- 
ment. Personally Princess Gertrude, a modest, retir- 
ing and reserved person, suffered horribly from this 
publicity. It offended and tortured every innermost 
fibre of her womanhood. The congratulations of 
the President of the Council were as painful to her 
as the bulletins of the Court physicians. But she 
did not demur to any of it for one moment : it was 
all part of her duty to endure this exposure. 

If she envied the charcoal-seller in her black den 
the privacy which that den afforded her to pass 
through her pregnancy and travail in peace, she 
never said so. She bore this part of her punish- 
ment as mutely and meekly as she had borne the 
rest ; she had gone through this ordeal twice before. 
If only her reward might be at last to bring forth a 
male child ! 


1 87 


1 88 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


This desire, strong in almost every woman, was 
in her intense ; she longed to be the mother of a 
monarch, and she sighed to have removed from her 
what she felt was a reproach. She scarcely dared to 
hope for the gratification of her desire. Both King 
John and her husband did not conceal their con- 
temptuous conviction that she would be incapable 
of bearing a son ; that when the nine moons should 
have run their course, another little female creature 
would bleat in a world where even female royalty 
does not count as much as male. 

The Crown Prince himself felt that he had not 
deserved such an unaccountable slight from a Deity 
whom he had always served zealously, and in whose 
honour he would with pleasure have cheerfully burnt 
ten thousand unbelievers, if burning had still been 
in vogue. 

If only this time Heaven would vouchsafe to give 
the throne an heir ! It was extraordinary, inscru- 
table, and sorely trying to the strongest religious 
faith, that whilst male infants wailed and squirmed 
by the million in the dwellings of the poor all 
the world over, kicked their cold little feet on rotten 
straw, and sucked with dry, hungry lips at empty 
breasts, a Prince, most orthodox, most impecca- 
ble, the central pillar of the constitution, should 
have been blessed by no son in a dozen years of 
wedlock. 

c Ah ! the poor soul!* thought Madame Ogier, 
the Gallian ambassadress, looking at Princess Ger- 
trude at a Court ceremony. c If she were only a 
grocer’s wife, she could go away, and unlace her 
stays, and lie down. But as it is she is just like the 
poor horses they use at home to tread out wheat in 


XI 


HELIANTHUS 


189 


the farmyards : she is under the whip, and she must 
go round and round, and round and round/ 

Often had she watched those horses, for she had 
an unde a small farmer in a central Gallian province, 
where the young horses are driven in a circle half- 
frantic, rearing and kicking, to thrash out the 
ripened corn under their unshod hoofs. 

£ The lines of great folks are not laid in pleasant 
places, as little ones think,’ the good lady who 
represented Gallia at the Helianthine Court said to 
her daughter. c We envy them when we see them a 
long way off; but we mistake, my dear, we mistake.’ 

Madame Ogier herself was middle-aged ; she was 
stout ; she was short of breath ; her diamond tiara 
made her head ache ; her ample bosom, displayed 
under its pearls, made her feel embarrassed ; the 
obligations of etiquette worried her ; she sighed for 
the time when there had been no other palace in their 
own lives than the Palace of Justice at home, and 
when she had herself superintended the savoury 
cooking of the dame de saumon and the entrecote a la 
Bordelaise for the dinner of her young and hungry 
advocate. In the odd, topsy-turvy, half-reactionary 
and half-revolutionary society of the capital cities 
of our time we may so often see the prototypes of 
Madame Ogier — excellent women, devoted help- 
mates in the earlier stages of their lords’ careers ; mere 
hobbles on the foot in their men’s later position ; con- 
scious that they are so, yet tenacious of their marital 
and social rights, wearing their sparkling jewels with 
heavy head and heart at imperial and royal balls, 
disfiguring the present and overshadowing the future 
of their brilliant partners, living witnesses of the 
angular and melancholy issues of monogamy. 


190 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c I was of use to you once, Ferdinand ! ? this poor 
lady said, in a rare moment of emotion, on a New 
Year’s morning in Helios, to her beloved lord. 

c Ah yes, my love, and you are so always,’ said 
Ogier, with cordial kindness and admirable false- 
hood. 

She shook her head sadly ; she was not deceived, 
and she mourned for the little house of twenty-five 
years before at Passy. 

Meanwhile, whether pitied or envied, the poor 
Crown Princess bore her burden, and in due time 
was actually blessed by a male child. 

It was a great occasion at the Palace of the Soleia. 
The President of the Council, the President of the 
Senate, the Prime Minister, the leader of the Opposi- 
tion and other notabilities were gathered together in 
one of the vast tapestried and frescoed salons, with 
the electric lamps shining above their heads — some 
of these bald, some white, some grey, some dyed, 
but all deferentially bent in a listening and humble 
attitude for the news which another quarter of an 
hour must bring ; so at least a gynecologist, sum- 
moned there from Candor for the momentous occa- 
sion, had assured them. Now and then one or other 
of them murmured a sentence, or strove to conceal 
a yawn ; but no conversation could be kept up at 
such a juncture. 

Suddenly the double doors were thrown open by 
gentlemen-lackeys, and the Crown Prince entered, 
taller, stiffer, redder than ever, more than ever with 
the port of a Hercules bearing the world upon his 
shoulders. As the eminent persons waiting there 
humbly bent to the ground before him, he announced, 
in pompous tones of unspeakable elation, that a prince 


XI 


HELIANTHUS 


191 


had been born to the nation, a son to him, an heir to 
the throne. With a certain condescension, added as 
a courteous colophon, he alluded to the hand of a 
merciful Creator in the auspicious event, and then he 
had a sound as of intoning in his voice. 

Without, in the early evening, bells began to ring, 
cannon to fire, bands to play, bonfires to be lit on the 
hills around, the solemn, vision-haunted, god-forsaken 
hills of Helios ; and the people, with that fatal sus- 
ceptibility and receptivity which throws a multitude 
into the dangerous magic of suggestivism, began to 
shout, to sing, to cheer, to rejoice for they knew not 
what, and gathered in uproarious thousands before 
the gates of the Soleia. 

In answer to those outcries the short, stout, stiff 7 
figure of the King, and the spare, erect, stiff figure 
of the Crown Prince, appeared together upon the 
balcony above the great entrance, the light from the 
open windows behind them ; the crowd yelled its 
congratulations as the banner of the royal House 
swayed to and fro. 

The Municipality presented a gold and tortoise- 
shell cradle ; the Provincial Council a perambulator 
in ivory and rare woods ; illuminated addresses were 
sent up from hundreds of mayors and prefects ; and 
a golden bowl, set round with pearls of price, for 
bread and milk, was offered by the Senate. 

The King considered all these gifts as witnesses to 
his own popularity, and as so many gilded nails driven 
into the dais of his throne to strengthen it. The 
Crown Prince scarcely went so far as that ; he took 
them as a right. 

A little later the most splendid pomp, and the most 
extravagant expenditure, attended the infant's baptism 


192 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


in the Cathedral of St. Athanasius. He was named 
John Theodoric, and received the title of Prince of 
Helios. He was made colonel of a regiment of 
Guards and military governor of a province. The 
usual amnesty was granted in honour of his birth to 
condemned persons whose offences were not too 
flagrant, although no one, if put to it, could have 
explained the logic of so odd a connection as that 
between the birth of a babe and the national prisons 
and reformatories. An atom of flesh is born into the 
world, different in no way from all other flesh except 
in the superstitions and imaginations of men. This 
event is accompanied by the pardon of several thou- 
sands of incarcerated persons, and the cancelling of 
tens of thousands of punitive sentences and fines. 
Now it is clear that if the incarcerations were just, 
and just the fines, they should not be altered ; if un- 
just, that they should not have to wait to be redressed 
for the incident of an infant s birth. The usage 
makes a farce of law, and puppets of a magistracy. 
But the populace is never logical, and is easily moved 
to mawkish sentiment j nor does it dislike to see 
justice in motley, and the gravity of law tricked out 
in cap and bells. 

The winter, usually so mild in Helianthus, had 
become of great severity at this time. The mountain 
ranges were covered with snow, the plains were swept 
by icy and fierce winds, the blue sea was grey and 
sullen and murderous. So rare was such a season in 
this country that people were unprepared for it, both 
in the towns and in the provinces ; neither their 
houses nor their clothes were made to resist its sharp- 
ness ; the angry waters swallowed up the slender, 
shell-like fishing boats, and the frozen hills and vales 


XI 


HELIANTHUS 


l 93 


killed the lambs, the kids, the calves, the sheep, and 
the troops of wild young hares were famished on the 
frozen plains. Many human lives were also lost 
through the unfamiliar visitation. Men and women 
and children were found dead beneath churchyard 
walls, on ancient temple steps, on solitary shores, in 
lonely wattle huts, even in the lanes of cities with 
the cold electric-light shed on them. Cold, un- 
usually prolonged, had already injured the olive and 
the orange harvest. Corn was taxed so highly that 
it was out of the reach of tens of thousands, and 
the chief bulk of it was shut up in huge granaries 
belonging to syndicates who would not sell, know- 
ing it would go up higher and higher in price as the 
people suffered more. Children lay dead in the 
fireless cabins, mere heaps of bones and yellow skin. 
Feeble throngs, hollow of eye and cheek, and burnt 
up with fever, collected before the communal palaces 
in their little towns, clamouring for food, and got 
enough for two out of two score. The bright yellow 
discs of the coltsfoot and the celandine filled the 
ditches in the opening of the year, and amidst them 
lay dead bodies killed by hunger or from indigestion 
through eating balls of clay. 

There were numerous subscriptions, headed by 
the donations of the king and closed by those of 
his tradesmen, as a child’s procession of Noah’s 
Ark animals is headed by the elephant and closed 
by the rabbit. Large sums of money passed through 
many hands and many channels, although not much 
of it reached its destination ; and throughout the 
more northern provinces, and in the mountainous 
districts, the people lay fleshless and stark on the 
roads and in the barren fields. 


194 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


The people should have been reconciled to their 
fate, no doubt, in thinking of the tortoise-shell and 
gold cradle, of the pearls, and furs, and laces, and 
lawns given to the new-born prince ; but, alas ! 
they were so ignorant that they did not know 
of them, and so had not even this consolation. 
Many of them did not even know that the Prince 
of Helios had been born, so that the agony of 
their empty bellies and gnawing bowels was not 
even alleviated by the national joy. In the far 
mountains by the lonely lakes, on the solitary plains 
of the interior, the population was sparse and widely 
scattered ; the news of the new-born Gunderode did 
not reach these through any channel until such time 
as their priest included his hallowed name in public 
prayer. 

Amidst all this flutter and flurry in honour of her 
son, poor Princess Gertrude pressed the small red 
crumpled face of her babe to her bosom, of which 
the milk was denied to him, and regretted that she 
was not a woman of the people, free to do with her 
offspring as she chose : the wife of a weaver, of a 
cobbler, of a tailor, of some worker in sulphur mine 
or mariner in sailing brig, only not forced to yield 
up her little son to an alien breast and to the arms 
of hirelings. 

But for the first time in her life she was happy 
and proud, and could feel that her lord was con- 
tent with her. For the first time her heart was 
closed to the woes of others. Possibly if she had 
gone into the ruined districts she might have been 
more painfully conscious of what was being suffered 
in them ; but statistics and official returns do not 
touch the heart unless the heart be accompanied by 


XI 


HELIANTHUS 


J 95 


a very vivid imagination, and the imagination is a 
sensitive plant which withers in palaces. She was 
happy, for the first time in her life, proud of her 
boy, and glad to see her husband so contented and 
so triumphant; her one duty had been to bear him 
an heir, and she had now done that duty after twelve 
years of a marriage almost as bad as barren. She 
was sorry, indeed, for the hunger of the south and 
the north whenever she thought about it ; but in- 
tensely sorry she could not feel. The universe 
was concentrated for her in the little red wrinkled 
morsel of flesh, slobbering and slumbering in his 
cradle under draperies of old English point. He 
was her baby, her heaven-born, her latest and 
sweetest treasure ; but he was much more than this 
in her sight : he was the future king. For her the 
infant's toothless, shapeless lips were touched by a 
sacred chrism. 

c You too — even you!' thought Othyris, as he 
saw her absorption in the little heir : even she, good 
soul as she was, had been drawn into the vortex of 
selfish concentration. 

He could say nothing to her, for anything he 
would have said in the sense of reproach for her 
selfishness would have sounded like disappointment 
and rancour. 

Undoubtedly the cruelty of the lot of the many, 
the waste and self-indulgence in the lives of the few, 
were, when she thought of them, very painful and 
perplexing to her. She could not attempt to account 
for the anomaly satisfactorily ; she accepted it as a 
sorrowful mystery — which it is not very difficult to 
do when the sorrowful mystery does not starve our- 
selves or our own children. That her own order was 


196 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


in any way the cause of such disparities she would 
have indignantly denied, and probably with justice. 
But, as a rule, she did not either generalise or 
analyse ; she referred such painful problems to the 
omniscience of the All-Supreme. 

Yet, alas ! the Providence in whom she believed so 
humbly and devoutly was unkind to her ; her little 
son was not more sacred to it than the starved babes 
in the famine districts ; and whether fools or sages 
were his worshippers, both were unable to keep alive 
the little scion of the House of Gunderode. 

It has never been explained satisfactorily by either 
philosophers or pathologists why Nature is such an 
anarchist that she allows royal babes to be subject to 
croup ; it is clearly wrong in the divine ordering of 
things, and is a problem which must greatly trouble 
and confound the mind of the true royalist. But, 
unfortunately, the fact is that royal infants are not 
more respected by disease than those of the popula- 
tion of the slums, and it so happened that the poor 
little Prince of Helios died after an illness of a few 
hours, suffocated by this common malady like any 
common child, and the Crown Princess mourned him 
as any ordinary mother might have done. His name 
had scarcely been included in the rubric of the priest- 
hood and the prayers of the nation, before it ceased to 
be anything more than an inscription upon a tomb. 
The poor little fellow died at five months old ; the 
length of his names and the weight of his honours 
were powerless to keep him alive; he actually died of 
suffocation, just like any forlorn atom breathing its 
last on a bed of rags, despite the science and the 
efforts of all the physicians of the Court. 

‘ Poor mother ! Poor mother ! ’ thought Othyris 


XI 


HELIANTHUS 


197 


as he heard the tidings. How cruel was life — mak- 
ing the women lose what has cost them such pangs 
to bear and bring forth ! & 

He who had felt the fetters which bound him to 
the throne lightened by the child’s birth, felt them 
return in all their might at his death. He was once 
more Heir-Presumptive to the throne of Helianthus. 
The shadow of the purple hung like a rain-cloud 
upon the horizon of his life. 

A mortuary chapel of great beauty and riches was 
consecrated to the child’s memory, and his image in 
solid silver was enshrined in it as well as his silver 
coffin. Candles burned, and bells rang, and flowers 
bloomed above his tomb night and day, and innumer- 
able young children of his age died of the poisoned 
milk of mothers employed in the factories of deadly 
trades. Yet neither his parents nor his grandfather 
would, by any stretch of imagination, have been able 
to conceive why the industrial classes are attracted 
by anarchistic doctrines ! 


King John was driving home, after a day’s 
shooting with two of his gentlemen, when about a 
mile off the city gate on the north shots were 
fired at him by three young men hiding behind a 
myrtle hedge on the roadside. All the shots missed 
him, and struck the boughs of an opposite plane- 
tree. The young men fired again, but two were 
seized in the act by the carabineers who rode close to 
the carriage; the third fled across the fields, and 
momentarily escaped, only to be captured later on, 
hidden in a disused water-tank. 

# The King returned to the Palace, and ate his dinner 
with an undiminished appetite. The youths were 


198 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


escorted by police and gendarmes to the city prison 
for malefactors, and the attempt becoming known, 
the evening journals hastily printed ‘specials’ and 
the Prefect and Syndic as hastily organised thanks- 
givings. The great cathedral bells rang, and the 
palace square was illuminated and thronged. The 
King, when he had finished his dinner, went out 
on to the balcony above the great portico, accom- 
panied by the Crown Prince, and remained there for 
a quarter of an hour, his figure black against the 
light of the room behind him ; standing bareheaded 
and making signs of acknowledgment with his right 
hand, the spark of a lighted cigar between his lips 
as usual. 

The crowd cheered, and some of the women in 
it sobbed with hysteria ; for an attempted assassina- 
tion, like a death-bed repentance, sends up the value 
of a perfectly useless and uninteresting life, and floats 
it upwards to the empyrean, as a balloon on the mere 
cutting of ropes soars by the force of gas into the 
clouds and above them. 

The morning papers described and illustrated 
the scene by the plane-tree, writing with enthusiasm 
of the wonderful self-possession of the King, and 
sold largely. They also stated that the populace had 
tried to lynch the criminals on the way to the 
prison, which was quite untrue ; and that there had 
been discovered indisputable evidence of an extensive 
international conspiracy, which was not true either, 
but was a communique : a lie of the police, not of 
the Press. 

The lads were said to be dangerous anarchists; 
and, as usual, it was stated that an electrical thrill of 
horror had galvanised the whole of the universe. 


XI 


HELIANTHUS 


199 


John of Gunderode himself took the matter calmly 
but very seriously, and expected every one to do the 
same ; and his private cypher and his private wires 
worked incessantly for several days. 

The Red Spectre always haunts the beds and the 
brains of sovereigns. The roar of the cheering 
crowds is so terribly similar to the roar of a revolted 
population ; the press of the multitudes through the 
streets to see a State procession so painfully suggests 
what the stress and haste would be to see a fugitive 
monarch, a burning palace, an improvised scaffold. 
The guffaw of a grinning mob differs so little in its 
expression from the howl of a crowd that is cursing 
and clamouring for blood. The monarchs may give 
their coachmen or their postillions, or their footmen 
on the footboard, revolvers in each pocket ; they 
may brave ridicule by mounting gendarmes on 
bicycles behind them ; they may wear coats of mail 
under their cambric shirts ; they may have ton 
weights of iron chains, and rows of dark cells in 
their prisons under the sea level, where no ray of 
daylight ever comes, ready for their foes when 
captured. But all these precautions cannot rid them 
of the Red Spectre ; of the ever-present personal 
fear of assassination which chills their blood even 
in the warmth of a summer garden, of a friend’s 
embrace, or of a bridal bed. 

It was this fear which gave to the eyes of John of 
Gunderode that strange expression of menace, of 
apprehension, of painful expectancy, and of scared 
vision, which made men doubt whether he had in 
fact the stolid bull-dog courage which was always 
attributed to him, and which was a characteristic 
of his race. In reality he had it; he was naturally 


200 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


brave, with a cynical, cool courage, hard and un- 
sympathetic, like all his other faculties. But when 
the fear of assassination has once entered into a man 
it never leaves him ; it lies down with him at night, 
and gets up with him in the morning, like an incur- 
able disease. It looks out from his regard always 
en vedette , always apprehensive, always glancing to 
right and to left like the regard of the oft-hunted 
stag. John of Gunderode knew that this look had 
passed into his own eyes, reflex of a haunting thought 
in his brain ; and to conceal it he kept his eyelids 
half closed, or used a double eyeglass, for which his 
sight had no need. 

It is remarkable that the great ones of the earth, 
when they escape from a danger, always praise the 
Deity as having watched over and guided them out 
of it ; but when they fall a victim to a revolver, or 
a dagger, or a bomb, they are never said by their 
families to have been deserted, or punished, by their 
Heavenly Father; the most that is said then, is that 
the ways of God are mysterious and inscrutable. So, 
as the three youths had all and each of them missed 
the anointed of their land, every one in the Court 
circle and. out of it was loud in their admiration of 
the conspicuous intervention of Deity. It was the 
Almighty Power which had made the lads’ sight fail, 
and their hands tremble, at the critical moment, and 
the bullets fail to find their billets. 

£ It would have been better/ said Othyris, c if the 
Almighty Power had intervened to prevent the lads’ 
purchase of the pistols.’ 

‘ What a dreadful thing to say ! ’ cried the Crown 
Princess, to whom he made the remark. She was 
a religious person; her early training had been 


XI 


HELIANTHUS 


201 


evangelical, and she really saw the finger of Provi- 
dence. distinctly in the fact that all three bullets 
had hit the plane-tree instead of reaching her father- 
in-law. 

c It seems to me an indisputable fact/ replied 
Othyris. 

‘You would say, then/ she continued, ‘that 
Christ should have prevented Lazarus dying, instead 
of raising him from the tomb ? * 

‘ I imagine it would have been kinder to Lazarus/ 
said Othyris. 

She was still more shocked. 

‘It is so sad/ she murmured, ‘so grievously sad, 
that you are so Voltairean ! * 

Othyris laughed. 

‘ Oh, surely I am of a later date than Voltaire ! 
And I am not so meritorious as he/ he added. ‘ I 
have not yet saved my Calas.' 

‘ Perhaps you will feel it your duty to save these 
three assassins ? ' 

‘ If there were a chance that I could do so, I 
would try to save them from a violent death/ 

‘ You cannot speak seriously/ 

‘ I do, indeed. Should I jest on such a subject?' 

‘ On what grounds would you save them ? ' 

‘On many. That they are young; that they 
were deluded ; that they had hitherto borne good 
characters ; that their shots all missed their mark ; 
that no harm was done ; and, beyond all, that a ruler 
should always be merciful and magnanimous.' 

‘ But it is owing to the country to set an example.' 

‘Oh, the poor country! We owe it so many 
things that we never pay to it ! Surely an example 
of clemency is the highest example that can be set ? ' 


202 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c Clemency is a great virtue, no doubt/ said his 
sister-in-law, sorely troubled in her ethics, as good 
women often are. c And I am sure your father 
would be inclined to exercise it.' 

Othyris was silent. He thought that when his 
father should show clemency the marble lions on 
the quay would walk. 

c If he were sure that it would be understood/ 
she added. c Not misinterpreted. The people are 
so apt to take kindness as meaning fear.' 

c The people are not often tried in that way. We 
are always a cheval on our rights, using them as the 
Cossacks their knouts. The King would be the last 
man to lay down his knout.' 

c The King will do nothing in the matter himself. 
He will follow what his Ministers advise, and what 
the judges of his courts may decide ; he will allow 
the law to take its course, that is all he will do ; he 
will exercise no personal power, he will give no 
personal opinion.' 

c But it is. precisely in such a matter as this that 
he could use his personal influence usefully and well. 
He is the offended person, he was the intended 
victim ; he would possess an absolute right to be as 
merciful as his wishes might lead him to be. In 
these matters, with people in general, the common 
law is inexorable. It does not allow the person 
injured to save the injurer, or the intending injurer, 
from legal punishment. It is one of the most caustic 
satires on Christian nations that no man may forgive 
his own injuries if once the law has got hold of them ; 
that no man is allowed to rescue his enemies from 
the sentence passed on them by others. But the 
King has this advantage over all other men, that he 


XI 


HELIANTHUS 


203 


can, if he please, pardon and set free his foes. He 
can use his prerogative to annul the capital sentence 
of the law. True, in general usage, this right is 
exercised on his behalf by the Minister of Justice ; 
but he can at any time exercise it himself ; and 
what time would be so fitting as this, when the 
accused (who will be to-morrow the condemned) 
have been guilty of a personal offence against himself, 
and are scarcely more than mere boys in years ? I 
am quite sure that such an act would be not only 
generous but most politic, most wise. It would go 
to the heart of the people of Helianthus.’ 

The Crown Princess sighed and dropped stitches 
in her stocking. 

c What you say is most touching, and in a 
measure quite true; but, my dear Elim, it is not by 
the heart that a sovereign can rule, — it is by the 
head. It is sometimes more salutary (even in the 
end more merciful) to inspire terror than affection. 
The populace may applaud a romantic benevolence ; 
but what they obey is, alas ! that which they fear.’ 

‘He is called the father of his people ! ’ said 
Othyris bitterly. 

c Fathers must chasten/ said his sister-in-law. 

c But fathers do not slay their sons ! In the 
power to exercise mercy, there seems to me to lie 
the supreme privilege of royalty ; but no one in our 
day uses it. The Code is the only Holy Writ/ 

c The Code is the supreme law of the country ! * 
said his sister-in-law. 

( No doubt, and perhaps the judges could not 
give any other verdict, the law being what it is ; 
but it is precisely in such a case that the royal prerog- 
ative of mercy might be exercised ; that “ Go, and 


204 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


sin no more,” might be said by the head of the 
State.’ 

She sighed again, and her needles clicked nervously 
in the silence. She was by nature full of kind and 
tender instincts, but these had been steeped in an 
atmosphere of conventionality and absolutism till 
they were dry and stiff, the life crushed out of 
them under the pressure, like flowers in a hortus 
siccus. 

Othyris looked at her with some derision, and 
some compassion, and with a sense of infinite sadness. 
Herself, she would not have hurt a fly, or have ever 
avenged the cruellest wound ; but she had been so 
trained and so saturated with prejudice, that she 
could see only justice in a judicial murder, and only 
strength and right in an inexorable vengeance. 
What use was it to argue with one whose mind was 
closed to argument as a battened-down port-hole is 
closed to the surging of the sea-waves ? Hundreds 
of times had he renewed such discussions with her, 
only to be met by that calm resistance of a narrow 
obstinacy which regarded itself as a religious duty. 

‘ Look at me and answer me, Gertrude,’ he said 
after long silence. ‘ Do you seriously believe that 
it is either right, or necessary, or wise, to kill, in cold 
blood, three youths under twenty years of age for 
an abortive attempt which did no harm to any one 
or anything ? ’ 

She raised her head and looked at him. 

‘It is a question of State which it does not 
become me to discuss or to decide. Nor does it 
become you, my dear brother-in-law. Remember, 
Elim, if you make yourself the apologist of your 
father’s enemies there are many who will remark 


HELIANTHUS 


XI 


205 


that his death would have left only one other life 
between you and the throne.' 

A hot flush of indignation rose over his face. 

£ You !’ he exclaimed. ‘You can say this horrible 
thing to me, or think it ? ' 

‘ I neither say, nor think it, dear Elim. I say 
that there are many who will attribute base motives 
to your defence of the anarchists who attempted 
your father's life. It is not the part of a son, it is 
not the part of a prince, to defend such persons. 
They have their own legal defenders. Leave them 
to those.' 

c You, a religious woman, half a saint, do not 
believe in the supreme obligation of acting according 
to one's convictions whatever construction may be 
put on those ? You do not believe that the exercise 
of mercy is the most divine attribute of a human 
character ? ' 

‘It is not either you or I who can exercise it 
in this instance, and neither you nor I can be entitled 
to criticise the actions of one whose first subjects we 
both are, and to whose measures we are both bound 
to give an implicit and unquestioning respect.' 

‘ Respect a brutal vengeance ? Where are the 
precepts of your religion ? ' 

‘ Hush ! Hush ! You distress me unspeakably. 
You should not even think such things in the solitude 
of your chamber.' 

‘ If I must neither think nor act, if my utterances 
on their behalf would only confirm and hasten the 
death-warrant of those unhappy boys, I will leave the 
country, in order that I may not hear the weeping 
of their mothers, and the sound of the quicklime 
being thrown on their young bodies.' 


ao6 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c To leave the kingdom you must have your 
father’s consent, both as your king and your com- 
manding officer.’ 

‘ I am a slave, then ! ’ 

c Acquiescence in duty is not slavery.’ 

c I decline to see duty where you see it. What 
you call duty is a mere fetish to which you sacrifice 
and slay all your best instincts, all your most humane 
impulses, all your upright honesty of purpose, all the 
sensitive feelers of your conscience.’ 

c I do not think so,’ said his sister-in-law calmly ; 
and she moved her knitting-needles in and out with 
even measure ; she had been disturbed and troubled 
for a moment by his arguments, but she had now 
regained her placid and unquestioning belief in the 
dogma perpetually taught to her from her cradle. 

‘ You ought to pity these boys as you pity mis- 
guided children.’ 

c Of course one pities them, in a sense. One 
pities all guilty persons. But one must be careful 
not to allow one’s compassion to blind one’s sense of 
right and wrong.’ 

‘ Hate the sin and love the sinner. Is not that 
what one ought to do ? ’ 

Princess Gertrude shuddered. 

‘ Love a regicide ? — oh, my dear Elim ! Christ 
Himself would not enjoin that.’ 

‘ Why is a regicide worse than any other 
murderer ? ’ 

‘ Pray, if you think such things, do not say them 
to me.’ 

‘Well, tell me why. Argue with me — do not 
muzzle me.’ 

But she was obstinately mute. The subject 


XI 


HELIANTHUS 


207 


seemed to her too horrible, too blasphemous, too 
diabolical, to be discussed in speech. That the son 
of a king should think the assassination of a king a 
crime on the same level as the murder of a shoeblack 
or a shepherd, appeared to her impious. 

c Really I cannot listen to you when you are in 
such terrible moods as this/ she said nervously. 
c A king is the Lord’s Anointed ! His person is 
sacred.’ 

c Indeed ? ’ said Othyris, with sarcastic incredulity. 
c Then it ought also to be invulnerable. A sovereign 
ought not even to have the heel of Achilles. But he 
has.’ 

She was silent ; she dared not blame Providence 
for not having made monarchs bullet-proof. Yet 
she could not either assert that they were so. It was 
one of those mysteries which she was accustomed to 
put away in the innermost chambers of her mind, in 
faith and fear, there unexamined to await the will 
of the Most High for explanation. 


CHAPTER XII 

Almost the only person in Helios whom Elim, 
Duke of Othyris, counted as his friend was, para- 
doxically enough, the editor of a small newspaper of 
pronounced republican sympathies. Ednor was a 
scholar and a liberty-loving enthusiast ; on both of 
which accounts his lot in Helios was an unhappy 
one. He wrote all the articles for his little journal 
himself, and the views which were expressed in its 
columns frequently earned for him the imposition 
of heavy fines and even occasional periods of im- 
prisonment or exile. When he was fortunate enough 
to have his freedom, he lived in a garret in the 
poorest and lowest quarter of the town ; and there 
Othyris used to visit him as frequently as he could 
manage to do so without attracting attention. 

On one of these visits, in the summer after the 
fall of the Ivory Tower, Ednor happened to mention 
that he had just been to see Platon Illyris, the old 
hero who had freed Helianthus from the foreign 
yoke half a century before, but whose glorious 
victories in the War of Independence his former 
comrade-in-arms, the first Theodoric, had basely 
utilised, at the psychological moment, to seize the 
vacant throne for the House of Gunderode. To 
Ednor’s great astonishment Othyris appeared not to 
208 


chap, xii HELIANTHUS 209 

be aware of the fact that Illyris was now living in 
obscurity and retirement close to Helios. 

/ Is it possible, sir,’ he asked Othyris, ‘that you 
did not know it ? ' 

c No, I never had a hint of it.’ 

‘ The police know it : have known it for years.' 

4 And my father, I suppose ? * 
c No doubt the King must always have been aware 
of it.' 

Othyris sprang to his feet, speaking with a deter- 
mination he rarely displayed. 

4 ^ will go and see Platon Illyris to-morrow ; he 
is the greatest man that Helianthus ever possessed.' 

4 His greatness dates from very long ago.' 
c So does Homer's,' said Othyris, with irritation. 
Who was there in the present generation worthy to 
hold a lantern to light the steps of the old hero of 
Argileion and of Samaris ? 

That he himself should have been ignorant of the 
presence in the country of such a man seemed to 
him almost criminal in its affront to a mighty 
past. 

‘Sir,' said Ednor, with hesitation, ‘your royal 
father is very adverse to your liberal opinions, to 
your protection of liberal thinkers, to your avowed 
antagonism to the existing institutions (to use the 
newspaper phrase) ; he will remember (if you forget) 
that Platon Illyris was put in chains by your grand- 
sire, the late sovereign, Theodoric. For you, sir, 
to visit him — will it be prudent ? ' 

‘That is not a question I ask myself.' 

‘No; but when others are involved, might you 
not ask it ? ' 

Othyris was surprised. 


210 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c How could my visit hurt him ? It might be held 
to compromise me, but not him/ 
c I fear that it would do both, sir/ 

Othyris rose with some impatience ; when contra- 
dicted he was apt to remember that he was a prince. 

c My father, the King, holds what views he thinks 
right. I hold mine. Had I dreamed that the hero 
of Argileion was dwelling near Helios, he should not 
have waited so long for the little I can do to show 
him my profound respect/ 

Ednor sighed and desisted from argument. 

Such a visit seemed to him a great imprudence, 
certain to cause great risk of troublous entanglements, 
but he saw that to attempt to dissuade Othyris from 
it would be waste of words. The utmost he could 
hope to do would be to endeavour to have this im- 
prudence kept secret, or, at the least, minimised. 

Othyris bade his friend adieu and descended the 
break-neck staircase rapidly ; he said to himself, 
‘ What is worth doing at all, is best done quickly’; 
and he went out into the street, where the amber light 
of a summer afternoon was shining on the uneven 
stones, the moss-grown walls, the many-coloured rags. 
He was free from all serious engagements. Women 
were awaiting him at more than one afternoon recep- 
tion, and longing for the presence of c le bel Elim y 
^ l y Alt esse fris'e , c le Due dor'e , ( le Prince charm ant y ; 
but the disappointment he would inflict on these fair 
creatures did not touch him greatly. 

That afternoon, by a rare chance, he found him- 
self free and alone. So fortunate a coincidence 
might not, he knew, occur again for weeks. He 
took it as it offered ; and hastened to leave the 
quarter he was in, which was the poorest and lowest, 


XII 


HELIANTHUS 


2 1 1 


the Montmarte and the Marais, of Helios, and go 
out by the north gate towards the slopes of the 
Helichrysum hills, the spurs of the great mountain 
range called Mount Atys. A few persons recog- 
nised him, and uncovered their heads as he passed ; 
but for the greater part of the way he was left un- 
noticed, much to his satisfaction. It never occurred 
to the majority that this pedestrian could possibly be 
a prince. The people never easily understand that 
those who can ride or drive at pleasure may possibly 
prefer to walk. Those who are deprived of all 
luxury can never comprehend that luxury may be- 
come monotonous and tiresome. 

Most of the dwellers in these streets were engaged 
in their various daily labours, but the old dark houses 
with grated windows and iron-plated doors were gay 
with many-coloured rags and climbing plants blos- 
soming over their balconies; mediaeval lanthorns 
swung on chains from their walls, and storks were 
building their nests on the roofs ; beautiful olive- 
skinned children rolled in play with merry dogs on 
the uneven stones, and old men and women slept on 
the steps of churches which had once been classic 
temples ; and, ever and again (the singer unseen), 
some soft sweet voice was heard, falling down 
through the air, as a nightingale’s, in showers of 
liquid sound. In these quarters the King’s second 
son was well known, but few recognised him as he went 
rapidly and alone up the steep, uneven, paven high- 
way which led to the lower slopes of Mount Atys. 

Once outside the barrier of the town, with its high 
grey walls and its great entrance-gate, called the Gate 
of Olives, the soft and radiant landscape without 
broke full upon his sight, the terraces of the olive 


212 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


plantations rising one above each other in lofty tiers, 
their sad, silver-grey foliage relieved at frequent in- 
tervals by the white blossoms of the wild peach- and 
pear-trees. The day was brilliant, and its full beauty 
faced him as he passed the guards of the town, the 
customs-officials, and the soldiers standing sentinel 
under the portcullis of the city gates, who all has- 
tened in eager obsequiousness to salute him and to 
present arms. Once beyond these huge Cyclopean 
walls and ponderous iron doors, he was alone with 
the rural solitudes, which on this side of the town 
were not marred by any modern agriculture or vul- 
garity-exhaling suburban erections. 

The grass of the fields grew close up to the city 
bastions, and the rivulets ran down from the woods 
to fill their moat. Othyris drew in with a deep 
breath the aromatic air which blew freshly from the 
mountains and valleys of the alps of Atys, and 
thought that he was much better here than in the 
perfumed and crowded drawing-rooms of the great 
ladies of Helios, flattered and wooed by honeyed 
lying lips, and bound to lie sweetly to the liars in 
return. It was rarely at this season that he could 
escape thus into the solitude and freshness of the 
country, and the escape was the more delightful to 
him from its rarity, and its vague forbidden flavour 
of the hole buissonniere . 

In an aged pear-tree by the roadside two golden 
orioles were at work on a half-made nest among the 
white clusters of the blossoms ; he paused and 
watched them, then went on his way the happier for 
the sight. 

The olive woods needed little culture. There 
were no labourers under the trees. Peasants were 


XII 


HELIANTHUS 


21 3 


few and far between upon these hills. The sylvan 
solitudes were in perfect repose. The murmur of 
the sea was audible in the stillness, but the sea was 
unseen. In the distance, thrusting their grand heads 
into the white cirrus clouds, were the high crests of 
the snow mountains, blue as sapphires, spiritual and 
glorious as the dream-palaces which poets visit in 
their sleep. 

A narrow footpath wound upward for several miles 
between the trees and the great boulders of granite 
and marble, and led to the district which was known 
as Aquilegia. The way was strange to Othyris, 
and he met no one ; but he had been carefully 
directed by Ednor ; and at a certain point indicated, 
where an old moss-grown conduit covered a water- 
spring, which trickled down and crossed the hill-road, 
he came in sight of a low white house, with two 
cedars of Lebanon towering behind it, and with a 
group of black poplars interrupting the growth of the 
olive-trees. He stood still and looked at it with 
emotion. 

To him it looked scarcely more than a cattle-shed, 
this little, obscure dwelling, which sheltered the 
greatest life in Helianthus, whilst he and his were 
lodged in the grand palaces, the mighty castles, the 
villas, the parks, the gardens, to which they had no 
more title than the hunter to the condor’s nest, the 
angler to the beaver’s dam ! 

Othyris stood still a few moments, looking up at 
the vast, straight stems of the cedars, sentinels set by 
nature over the grave of a buried genius. Then he 
went forward, and upward, until he came upon the 
clear space of rough grass which stretched before the 
house. He saw no one; but the door of the house 


214 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


stood open, and he heard the sound of some one 
unseen on the other side of the house, drawing up a 
bucket from a well. 

He hesitated a few moments, wondering if he 
should offend : the sins of his forefathers felt like 
lead upon his spirit. In whose name, by what title, 
did he venture there ? 

It was a square house, chiefly built of the blocks 
of marble of a ruined temple, and ennobled by a fine 
and ancient frieze along its frontage, representing the 
history of the Golden Fleece. There was no garden; 
but on the rough grass surrounding the house there 
grew many rose-bushes and myrtle-bushes ; the rest 
of the hillside was a forest of olives — olives old, 
unpruned, with great gnarled trunks, beneath which 
the flowers of spring delighted to live sheltered and 
to blossom unmolested. 

There were here and there between them some 
gigantic oaks and some aged laurels. Between the 
dark grey olive wood and the pale grey olive foliage, 
the sea, visible from this height, sparkled in sunshine 
and fumed in storm, the semicircle of the dazzling 
city curving in sight on the eastern side of the bay. 

A very large dog of the Ulmer breed, lying on 
the threshold, rose and advanced with an angry 
growl and a deep rolling bay. 

Othyris put out his hand. 

c Good dog, I come in true faith.* 

A voice, from the casement immediately above, 
called to the dog. 

c Ajax, Ajax, be quiet ! * 

The dog looked up to some invisible speaker, 
obeyed and was silent, standing on the watch, half- 
reassured, half-doubtful. 


XII 


HELIANTHUS 


2l S 


‘Ajax, be friends with me/ said Othyris. ‘I am 
a friend of your race/ 

The great dog allowed himself to be caressed. 

Othyris looked up to the narrow aperture above, 
which had a sculptured coping and an iron grating ; 
ivy and the Madonna’s herb hung all about it, so 
that it was partially concealed by them. He could 
not see the speaker who had called to Ajax, and the 
dwelling seemed deserted ; it had no sign of life 
except the great dog and the innumerable swallows 
flying in and out of its verdure, above its roof, and 
between the trees around it. 

It was solitary and solemn, as befitted the tomb of 
a great renown which men had slighted and forgotten. 
Illyris, like Isis, who had been worshipped there, had 
no place in the world of living men ; the fires which 
had burned on so many altars for him were cold as 
those which had flamed for her. 

Othyris, receiving no further opposition from the 
dog, ventured across the marble step of the entrance. 
He found himself in a small, stone-paved passage, 
with a square window, which opened on to the 
myrtle-bushes and the unclipt roses. An inner 
door to the left, also open, showed him a room 
lined and filled with books ; in a great black leather 
chair an old man was seated, a large volume on his 
knee. Othyris knew that he must see before him 
Platon Illyris. 

He crossed the threshold, and bowed low, very 
low, before that mighty figure. 

‘ What do you want here, whoever you are ? ’ 
asked the occupant of the chamber, in a voice still 
deep and firm. 

‘ I wished to see Platon Illyris/ said Othyris. 


21 6 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


‘ Indeed ! * said the old man, with a sceptical irony 
in his tone. ‘ And who may you be that wants to 
see dead men ?’ 

Othyris hesitated ; he knew that the name of his 
House stunk in the nostrils of Illyris. But to lie 
or prevaricate to the old hero was repugnant to 
him ; it seemed unworthy. He hesitated a moment 
longer, then said : 

‘ Sir, I am the second son of the King. I am 
Elim of Gunderode. Men call me the Duke of 
Othyris/ 

The face of Illyris grew stern and dark ; his 
broad brows contracted ; his stooping form rose 
erect in his chair. 

‘Young prince,’ he said harshly, ‘you do ill to 
dig dead men out of their graves. I am in mine. 
Let me be.* 

‘ No. Let me speak with you a little while.’ 

‘ Wherefore ? A son of your House can be nought 
to me except an usurper, a tyrant, a stranger.’ 

‘ That I understand. To you, it must of necessity 
seem so. It was not to build up our throne that 
you gave your blood and your brethren.’ 

The old man looked at him with the keenness of 
other days lighting up his eyes. 

‘ Such words are strange in your mouth. You 
are the great-grandson of the traitor Theodoric.’ 

# Othyris coloured and winced at the words, but he 
did not resent them. 

A tremor of remembrance and rage passed through 
the old man’s large and bony frame. He made a 
movement of both hands, as of one who pushes 
away some unclean and clinging thing. 

‘You are Princes in Helianthus,’ he said harshly. 


XII 


HELIANTHUS 


217 


‘ let that content you. Do not grudge me a runlet 
of cold water, a stone cell, a book, the air of the 
hills. Get you gone, young man. Go back to your 
purple and fine linen/ 

4 Sir/ said Othyris, c if those things satisfied me, 
should I be here ? ’ 

. c Who knows ? Idlers go to gape at a sick and 
sightless lion in his cage. I was a lion once, but 
your great-grandsire's nets were stronger than was 
my strength. Get you gone/ 

But Othyris lingered, standing before the vener- 
able figure with the folio volume open on its knees. 

He had come, humbly, as a scholar and disciple, 
when he might have come with pomp and power; he 
had come as a suppliant, when he might have come 
in authority; he had come with his heart in his 
hand, strongly moved and voluntarily putting aside 
his high estate ; — and he was received as an intruder 
who had broken in where he had no right to enter. 
He controlled his irritation and mortification with 
difficulty ; keeping always before him, as check upon 
his anger, his strong sense of the great wrongs done 
by those of his blood to Platon Illyris, and to the 
nation for which the aged hero had fought and 
suffered. 

c If he struck me/ he thought, c he would be 
within his rights/ So it seemed to him. 

A tame dove flew in over the myrtles and settled 
on the shoulder of Illyris, fluttering her wings and 
cooing softly. 

‘ If I wrung this creature's neck I should be a 
traitor,' said the old man. c The dove of Helianthus 
flew thus to your great-grandsire, and he first ca- 
ressed, then choked her.' 


2l8 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c Sir/ said Othyris, c I have said I abhor the 
crimes of my race. Is it fair, then, to reproach me 
with them ? The worst was done long before my 
birth. In what is done now, I have no more voice 
than that bird on your shoulder/ 

4 You are of the hawk’s brood. There is a Gallic 
proverb : On chasse de race' 

4 Many were traitors as well as he, were they not?’ 
he answered. 4 The nation was not true to itself. 
Were nations true to themselves could any man ever 
enslave them ? ’ 

Platon Illyris struck his clenched hand on the 
marble of the window-seat beside him. 

4 Where had there been a nation here except for 
me ? And your grandsire repaid me with a cell in 
the fortress of Constantine.’ 

4 Sir, I know,’ said Othyris, with profound humil- 
ity. 4 It was the blackest of all the crimes of that 
time, because the most ungrateful. But visit it not 
on me. I burn with shame for it. I come hither 
to ask your pardon for it. It should cling like the 
shirt of Nessus to my race. I do not see these 
things as my relatives see them. I have thought 
for myself, and I cannot go, unless you say that you 
forgive my people.’ 

4 And if I said it, what would the falsehood profit 
you ? ’ 

4 What does a blessing profit ? It is a breath, an 
idea, a murmur, a nothing ; yet it may change re- 
morse to peace.’ 

4 There is no remorse to change where there has 
been success.’ 

4 Sir, how can you tell ? The death-bed of 
Theodoric of Gunderode was visited by many 


XII 


HELIANTHUS 


219 


ghosts. I have heard old servants relate how, in 
the dead of night, unable to rest for the phantoms 
of his own thoughts and fears, he wandered sleepless 
and scared down the cypress alleys of Soleia, crying 
on dead men to pardon him, and on hell to spare him.’ 

Illyris was silent. His mind was far away in 
memories long untouched by any call to recollection. 

c I have read the history of our past and of yours,' 
said Othyris. c You, sir, are the great hero of that 
epopee, and your sword, not his, cut the cords which 
bound Helianthus to the knees of the foreign ruler. 
Helianthus should have been yours, not his.' 

The finely-formed hands of Illyris, the yellow- 
white of ivory, on which the veins stood out like 
ropes, closed with force on the arms of his chair. 

c Ay ! ' he said bitterly ; c she had been mine had 
I so willed, perhaps ; but at what a cost, what a cost ! 
The war of brethren for long years of strife ; an 
endless duel between the sons of the same mother. 
They would have made me ruler after Argileion and 
Samaris. They would have put the purple on my 
shoulders here in Helios, yonder; but I was no 
traitor to my country ; I left betrayal to Theodoric 
of Gunderode.' 

Othyris grew very white; what he heard now 
was no more than he had known before, than he had 
thought for himself in his boyhood ; but it wounded 
him cruelly to hear it said by another, and that other 
the victim of the ingratitude of his race. 

c He would have had no victory but for me,' said 
Illyris, c and he repaid me by captivity and exile. 
But that would have been of little matter if he had 
been true to the nation ; but he was false to her ! 
False as hell ! If I had chosen,' he muttered, c if I 


220 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


had chosen, Theodoric had never reigned in my 
country/ 

‘I know it, sir/ said Othyris. 

Illyris looked at him in doubt and with harsh 
scrutiny. 

‘You are of his blood. You enjoy the fruits of 
his perfidy/ 

‘ That is true/ said Elim, with humility. c But I 
am not blind ; I am not a sophist. My conscience 
is not to be bought/ 

£ That which he betrayed was not merely men : 
it was the nation, it was the country/ said Illyris, 
not heeding him. ‘Judas — Judas — Judas ! He 
entered the land as a soldier of liberty ; he reigned, 
he lived, he died, a king. What he did to me mat- 
tered nothing. I was but a human beast like him- 
self. But the land was holy, and he betrayed it! 
The land had received him with hope as a virgin her 
bridegroom, and as a wedding gift he brought 
misery and bondage to the innocent who had 
trusted him/ 

He had risen from his seat in the force of his 
passion ; his voice regained almost the strength of 
its early maturity ; his sunken eyes blazed, and his 
Olympian brows seemed clothed with thunder. 

Othyris stood before him as a young and timid 
pilgrim may have stood before the Zeus, with the 
lightnings in flame about his head. He spoke no 
word ; he dared offer no defence ; he knew that 
every syllable of the reproach was true. Had he not 
said these same things in his own thoughts ever since 
the earliest years of the garbled lessons given him in 
the story of his race, and in the share it had played 
in the liberation of the country ? 


XII 


HELIANTHUS 


221 


Theodoric had been a fine soldier ; when he had 
cried to his troops, £ Follow, follow, follow, children! * 
they had gone headlong after the gleam of his naked 
sabre, and would have followed him into the jaws of 
hell itself. But ambition is like a solvent acid ; in it 
all pure and precious qualities dissolve and disappear ; 
and the joy of adding territory to territory, treasure 
to treasure, title to title, is as a crucible in which all 
other feelings are burnt up and perish ; it is an ap- 
petite which has the passions of the miser, of the 
conqueror and of the lover, all fused into one. 

‘ If you like not to hear these truths of the man 
who bred you and yours, why come you hither, 
young prince ? ’ 

‘They are truths, sir/ said Elim wearily, ( and I 
am tired of phrases and of falsehoods/ 

The old hero looked at him with keen but not 
unkind gaze. 

c Come out from a Court, then, and dig for your 
daily bread. But you have been bred and begotten 
by tyrants. If you are the son of John of Gunde- 
rode, you have the blood in you also of the tyrant 
Gregory/ 

The face of Othyris flushed painfully. 

c My mother was a saint/ 

c She was a good and innocent woman, no doubt/ 
said Illyris, more gently ; c you do well to cherish 
her memory/ 

Othyris was silent. A great and painful emotion 
held him mute. 

The old man looked at him with searching keen- 
ness in his still clear eyes. c What can bring you 
here?’ he muttered; c what link can there be be- 
tween an Illyris and a Gunderode ? ’ 


222 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c Sir/ said Othyris, without resentment, c there is 
my reverence for you. It is sincere. May it not 
serve to atone in me for a birth which is no fault 
of mine ? ’ 

c That is strange language on a Gunderode’s 
tongue/ 

c Forget that I am a Gunderode. Think of me as 
a neophyte, as a volunteer like those who followed 
your army.' 

Illyris was moved, but he was incredulous. 

‘ Half a century and more has gone by since I had 
my army behind me. The bones of my legions lie 
fleshless in the ground. I am a cripple who scarce 
can move across this narrow room. Get you gone. 
You have the blood in you of Theodoric. I know 
not whether you mock me, or whether you speak in 
sincerity. Youth is honest sometimes, but what 
friendship can there be between myself and you? I 
believed in your great-grandsire’s word, and he lied 
to me and betrayed me. I fought with him, and he 
stabbed me in the back. He stole my bride, my 
love, my queen, my Helianthus. He violated her 
on what he called her nuptial bed. He called him- 
self her choice when he was but her ravisher. He 
called himself the Perseus of her Andromeda, and he 
was but the Minotaur. Think you my own fate 
would have mattered to me could I but have seen my 
country free, as I had seen her in the dreams of my 
youth — as I had seen her in my visions across the 
smoke of battlefields and the flames of burning cities ? 
Did ever I hesitate to risk my body for her? Her 
cause was holy to me. I lost for it all that men hold 
dear. Wealth and land and learning, the peace of 
the hearth, the love of woman, the joys of offspring, 


XII 


HELIANTHUS 


223 


were all as nought to me beside my country. And 
he — he — Theodoric — rendered all my losses vain, 
all my life fruitless, all my aims empty and filled with 
ashes. What did he make of her? A vassal to 
himself ; a waiter on the will of the great Powers ; a 
victim of a mock plebiscite ; a slave bound down 
under the drain of taxation, the hypocrisy of consti- 
tutionalism ; a mere copy of the other kingdoms of 
the world. My own wrongs I would have forgiven 
to him unto seventy times seven ; but the wrongs of 
my country — my country which was never his except 
by fraud and force — I would not forgive, though 
God Himself commanded ! ’ 

He breathed heavily, his eyes closed in exhaustion ; 
the emotions and the wrongs of other years surged 
up in his memory and sapped his remaining strength ; 
the torpor of great age succeeded the violence and 
eloquence aroused by the visit of the King's son. 

c Sir,’ said the voice of a woman behind him, 
c leave him, I pray you, if indeed you came in 
sincerity. He will say no more to you to-day. Your 
presence will only anger and distress him uselessly/ 

Othyris turned and saw her with surprise ; he had 
supposed that the old man lived alone, and had not 
expected to find any other occupant of the hill house. 

The beauty of her form and face, the repose and 
gravity of her manner, the seriousness and limpidity 
of her regard as her eyes met his, astonished him. 
It was not thus that women were wont to look at 
him. 

‘ I beg your pardon/ he murmured ; c I was not 

aware ’ He hesitated and coloured, moved to 

surprise and delight. In this young recluse of 
Aquilegia he recognised the Pallas Athene of the sea- 


224 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


shore, seen by moonlight a year earlier, on the 
occasion of his visit to the ruins of the Ivory Tower. 

There was a moment’s silence between them, but 
the embarrassment was on his side, not hers. 

c You are one of the Princes ? ’ she said, as he stood 
silent before her. c I heard some of your latest words 
to my great-grandfather. Why did you come here? 
It was unkind, ill-judged.’ 

f Unkind ! ’ repeated Othyris. c Unkindness was 
the last thing in my heart. Ill-judged? Why 
so ? What is done in respect and sincerity cannot 
offend/ 7 


.‘Sir, you brought the past with you, as a man 
brings his shadow. What can the past of your family 
be to Platon Illyris? Ask yourself.’ 

f It is because I am conscious of all it means to him 
that I am here.’ 

c Why ? You cannot atone for it.’ 

To atone is seldom given to us. We can only 
regret. I come in all sincerity and good faith to the 
greatest man of this country.’ 

Sir, there is an impassable gulf between him and 
you. It is filled by the blood of his countrymen, of 
his brethren, of his friends.’ 
c I had no share in its making.’ 
c No ; not you, but yours.’ 
c Lady, you are young to be so harsh.’ 

I am not harsh, nor is he. Why did you come 
here, sir? Could you expect welcome or obeisance 
from us ? ’ 


c No ; but I, even I, might expect justice.’ 

He controlled with difficulty his rising anger; the 
humility with which he had come hither had been 
sincere, even extreme in its sincerity ; but long habit 


XII 


HELIANTHUS 


225 


and the perpetual usage of daily life, the deference of 
the world and of all its classes to him and his, had 
made him unconsciously expect consideration, even 
gratitude, in return. 

‘Justice,’ she repeated slowly. How often is it 
invoked and invoked in vain ! If royal races were, 
once or twice in the world’s history, denied it, could 
they complain ? Is not the bread of injustice eaten 
beside millions of poor men’s cold hearths, all the 
year long, throughout the earth ? 

‘ He would not be unjust even to you,’ she said 
with a movement of the hand towards the now 
motionless form of her relative. ‘You are not to 
blame for the accident of your birth, for the 
treacherous blood that you inherit. But stay down 
yonder in your rose-gardens. You have nothing to 
do with us. I am a working woman, and he is an 
old, very old man, well-nigh dead, and utterly 
forgotten.’ 

She passed out before him to the entrance and 
laid her right hand upon the door still standing 
open. 

‘ Go, sir,’ she said, and she pointed with her left 
hand to the path beneath the olive-trees. She was 
wholly unconscious of it, but the simplicity and the 
dignity of her attitude and gesture moved him to an 
amazed and intense admiration. The red reflection 
of the sun, then sinking into the sea amidst grand 
pomp of evening clouds, shone on the clear cold 
beauty of her face, its pure outline, its fair colour, 
its soft and thick dark hair, wound about her head 
in massive braids. 

‘ What a beautiful woman ! ’ he thought, ‘ what 
a beautiful woman ! ’ and, still in all sincerity, but 
Q 


226 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. XII 


spurred by the longing to see more of her beauty, 
and to conquer her coldness, he drew back a moment 
on the threshold, and met once more the calm gaze 
of her meditative eyes. 

£ I am of the reigning House of Gunderode, that 
House which is condemned and despised by you, 
and I dare offer no appeal against your sentence. 
But I am your great-grandfather’s most devoted 
disciple ; and I trust that time will honour me by 
giving me his confidence and yours.’ 

He bowed very low, as he had done to Platon 
Illyris, and went across the threshold of the outer 
hall, on to the rough grassland without. She did not 
reply, but she closed the door as though to shutout 
his presence, and went within, calling the dog to her 
side. 

Othyris retraced his steps to the city. 

There was a great dinner that evening, followed 
by a Court ball, and he was barely in time to be in 
his place at the banquet. It was his office to lead the 
cotillion at the ball ; but its gay pranks and jests 
and figures jarred on him, and he sighed for the 
cool and fragrant silence of the woods of Aquilegia. 

‘ In other times,’ he thought, ‘princes kept fools 
to jest for them ; now we must play the fool our- 
selves from morn till night ! ’ 


CHAPTER XIII 

It was at an engagement near a hamlet called Turk 
that the army of Illyris, which had been weakened 
by great privations and exhausted by a long cam- 
paign in an already ravaged and burnt province, was 
defeated by the troops led by the first Theodoric ; 
and with his horse killed under him, his strength 
sapped by long famine, and the few veterans of his 
guard dead or worn out around him, Illyris was taken 
prisoner by an overwhelming force. 

When he was taken into the tent of Theodoric, 
the latter, who owed to him his entrance into 
Helianthus, came to meet him with both hands 
outstretched. 

‘ My old and honoured comrade/ he said, in 
a tone of apology, c the fortunes of war change.' 

Illyris, standing erect in his great height above 
the short, broad, stout figure of the head of the 
House of Gunderode, put his hands behind his back, 
and beneath his eagle's gaze the eyes of Theodoric 
fell. 

c The fortunes of war, yes,' said Illyris, c but the 
laws of honour do not.' 

Theodoric understood. His dark skin grew pale. 
He felt poor, and small, and mean, before this man 
who had driven the foreigner from the land and 
227 


228 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


asked no reward, who had given away a kingdom 
and was poor as Belisarius. 

He offered but a feeble resistance when his 
Ministers urged on him that the captivity of Platon 
Illyris was a necessary condition for the pacification 
of the nation. 

The fortress of Constantine received the liberator 
of Helianthus. 

His imprisonment was made as honourable and as 
little onerous as imprisonment can ever be, but the 
cage to the lion is agony, and whether it be a few 
yards more or less wide matters not to the king of 
the desert. 

From north to south, from east to west, the 
Helianthine people raged and fretted, and demanded 
the freedom of their hero ; but he was not restored 
to them. There were already on their newly-won 
liberties the bonds which accompany an accepted 
government ; and already they were powerless to 
break them asunder. 

For five long years Illyris saw the sun rise and 
set over the Helianthine sea from the casements of 
the fortress of Constantine. Then his sentence 
was changed to exile, and secretly, lest the sight of 
him and the memory of him should excite the 
populace, he was conveyed to a steam vessel in the 
Bay of Helios, which was bound for a northern 
kingdom. — a vessel chartered by the government of 
Theodoric on condition that she should put into no 
port betwixt Helios and her destination. The people 
would willingly have freed Illyris at any cost ; but 
they could neither see him nor speak with him ; they 
had no one to lead them ; they were like a rudderless 
boat; and already in the country there was that 


XIII 


HELIANTHUS 


229 


dominance of financial and commercial interests, 
that weight of personal egotism, that stream of 
blinding ambitions, which go with governments as 
vapours with a distillery. 

So the Gunderode reigned, and Illyris passed 
away. 

When the young scions of the House of Gun- 
derode had been taught the history of the country 
their House reigned over, the name of Illyris had 
been at once blessed and cursed by those who had 
arranged and expunged and modified narratives of 
the War of Independence for their instruction, 
giving all the glory of the liberation from foreign 
occupation to Theodoric. Before he was fifteen 
years old, Othyris had rectified the omissions of his 
text-books, and made of Illyris his hero ; but Tyras 
had never been enough interested in the past to 
do so. 

‘ Whoever plucked the pear we have eaten it/ 
he sagely reflected ; and the eating seemed to him 
the principal exploit, as it seemed to the world in 
general. 

No one could write or speak of the War of 
Independence without speaking of Illyris. But the 
government had striven to the uttermost to efface 
his name. In the public schools it was dwelt on as 
slightly as was possible by preceptors docile to those 
who appointed and could promote or dismiss them ; 
and in this matter the clerical joined hands with the 
lay teachers. The aged men who had been his 
contemporaries and his comrades became fewer and 
fewer with every year ; and a period which is neither 
near enough to possess the selfish interests of the 
present, nor far enough away to have gained the 


230 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


venerable patina of time, is easily pushed aside. It 
is like a painting which has neither the freshness of 
modernity nor the mellowness of age. It is too 
well known, yet not known well enough. 

For a part of his life after the accession of 
Theodoric, Illyris had been perforce an exile ; but in 
the latter part of the reign of Theodoric’s son and 
successor he was allowed to return, or rather his 
unauthorised return to his country was neither per- 
mitted nor prohibited, but tacitly allowed, by a 
government which ignored his existence except when 
its minions collected his hearth-tax. He lived out- 
side the south gate of the city, on a hillside covered 
with olive orchards and forests, whence a large part 
of the southern bay of Helios was visible, and the 
glories of sunrise seemed with every daybreak to 
be the new birth of the world. The place was 
called Aquilegia, from the quantities of wild colum- 
bines which grew beneath its trees ; a temple with 
Ionian columns which was still standing in its 
higher woods had been in other ages consecrated to 
the worship of Isis and her son. 

In this solitary place he dwelt, the world forgetting, 
by the world forgot, and was now over ninety years 
of age. He had been amongst the first and foremost 
of the popular leaders to deliver his country from a 
foreign yoke, and he had lived to see that the only 
form of liberty ever awarded to men is an exchange 
of tyrannies. The pack-saddle is shifted from the 
mule’s back, only for the sack of coals to be placed 
on it instead ; the burden alters in kind and in name, 
not in weight. 

This knowledge, and the pains in old wounds 
which ever and again reminded him of the battlefields 


XIII 


HELIANTHUS 


231 


of his manhood, were all that his glorious past had 
brought to him. Few pilgrims ever came there to 
do him homage. The name of Platon Illyris was 
certainly venerated by republicans, by revolutionaries, 
by all students of history ; but it was scarcely more 
than a tradition to the actual generation ; it was far 
away, like the name of Tell or of Washington ; men 
have no time in these days to worship the gods of 
other years. Moreover, although they held his name 
in great reverence, Illyris held their opinions and 
actions in no respect whatever. He had little 
sympathy with the new order of revolutionary feel- 
ing. Socialism and Collectivism had little virility 
or value in his sight. His keen mind discerned the 
tyranny which they would evolve. His robust and 
independent theories had been as different from theirs 
as a lion at large on the plains of the east is unlike 
a lion caged in a den of a city. Therefore few of 
them had ever come twice to Aquilegia, or cared to 
sustain twice the caustic and fiery sarcasm which 
rent their false logic to ribbons, the martial and 
manly temper which despised their gospel of com- 
munism and assassination. 

Old age is always disagreeable to early manhood, 
which despises it because it is old age ; but when it 
has a sunset glory behind it of a splendour of achieve- 
ment which the mists of calumny or the night of 
death cannot darken, then, of necessity, it is ex- 
tremely and unspeakably offensive to young men, 
especially to a generation which has achieved 
nothing. 

Ednor indeed came there with the reverence of a 
disciple and the sympathy of a scholar, but Ednor 
was not often free to do what he chose. So, 


232 HELIANTHUS chap. 

gradually, an absolute solitude had been the lot of 
the hero of the War of Independence; but it was 
not lamented by him ; he preferred the minds of 
great writers long dead to those of the doctrinaires 
and the nihilists of modern thought. He had 
become used to his loneliness, and valued it. 
Loneliness, if melancholy, is at least not irritating. 
The mind of a people is shallow. It soon forgets. 
For years the Helianthines cherished the name 
and adored the acts of their hero ; but all public 
evidence of their gratitude being unwelcome to 
those who ruled over them, and even being re- 
pressed with severity, they ceased to dare show what 
they felt, and as his own generation passed away his 
hold on the memory of the nation became slighter. 
To the generation which was that of Othyris the 
great patriot had become little more than a tradition ; 
and, like Othyris, it had ceased to remember that he 
was still a living man. 

Scrupulous and stern in his estimate of the 
obligations of honour, Illyris preserved an absolute 
neutrality on all public matters. He never went 
outside the olive groves and cedar shadows of 
Aquilegia; and the few who visited him in that 
solitude found him inexorable in his resolve to have 
nothing to do with revolutionary politics. 

‘ When a man is as old as I am, his name is but 
a pricked bladder; even the peas have dropped out 
of it,’ he said to those who urged him to let them use 
his name. He knew that he had liberated his country 
once; but that, through the treachery of another, 
and the unwisdom perchance of himself, neither he 
nor Helianthus was free — scarcely freer, except in 
semblance, than when the foreigner had ruled there. 


XIII 


HELIANTHUS 


2 33 


. The only companion of the old hero in his retreat 
in Aquilegia was the granddaughter of one of his 
three dead sons. Many influences had combined to 
make her what she was, and the silence and stately 
gloom of her birthplace, the old northern city on 
the grey dull waters, had been to her what 
the darkness of a sunless chamber is to the 
gladiolus ; it had bleached the rose-colour from the 
calyx. She had never known the joyousness of 
youth. Laughter had seldom parted her beautiful 
serious lips. She was not sad, but she was never gay. 
She was what Athene, made mortal, might have been. 
She had been born in a northern country, on a 
northern sea; a country of vast plains white with 
level frozen snow through long winters, and green 
with rich grass and covered by sleek herds and by 
fat flocks in spring and summer, with many-coloured 
barges drifting slowly along streams and through 
canals, and beautiful ancient cities with architecture 
fine and delicate as the lace-work for which their 
women were famous, and bell towers making music 
morn and eve over the gabled roofs and moss-grown 
walls. There she had spent a peaceful but lonesome 
childhood in a town full of mediaeval legend, art, and 
history. 

She had much of the beauty of a fine and classic 
statue : its harmony of line, its justness of proportion, 
its purity of colour. One could have fancied she was 
a Greek goddess imbued with life; there was some- 
thing in her aloof from ordinary existence, from 
general humanity ; something which was not arro- 
gance, and was still less shyness ; an immutable 
serenity which never varied, a disdain which was 
unconscious, even when it was unkind. 


234 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


She had dwelt with poverty, but she had been 
nourished on great thoughts, and she had in her 
veins the blood of an ancient and heroic race. 

Her mother had been a woman of that northern 
city on the cold grey sea ; the daughter of an 
artisan, a worker in brass and steel ; she had been 
married for her beauty and her piety by the son of 
Gelon Illyris, who, when exiled by the Gunderode, 
had gained his living as a gunsmith in the dim old 
Gothic seaport town which was hers by birth. She 
had died in the early years of her wedded life, and 
her daughter had never known her ; she grew up, 
alone with her father, who was heartbroken by the 
loss of his wife in her youth. She had been educated 
by the nuns of a solemn mediaeval refuge which stood 
on the edge of one of the dark and sluggish canals 
of the old streets. Here she had learned to make 
the beautiful lace which her mother had made before 
her, and here she had learned other feminine arts and 
crafts, and a power of reticence and silence not common 
to youth. From her father she had learned the 
Helianthine tongue, the Helianthine history, the 
Helianthine classics, and had conceived for them 
an impassioned reverence. By him, also, she had 
been taught to hold in awe and honour the great 
hero from whose blood they sprang. 

‘ Let us go to him, father ; let us go,’ she urged 
many a time. But the son of Gelon was a tired and 
sorrowful man ; his heart was in his wife’s grave ; he 
had never seen the great hero of his race, and 
Helianthus seemed to him far off, very far off, lying 
in the warm southern light, washed by the waves of 
the Mare Magnum. 

‘You can go to him, child, when I die, 


XIII 


HELIANTHUS 


2 35 


s h°u]d he be living then,’ he said to her, knowing 
that he had in him the pains of a mortal disease ; 
and when he did die, which was in her sixteenth year 
she went straightway from his grave to a southward- 
bound vessel loading in the docks. She did not 
know whether the hero of her race was living or 
dead; but Helianthus was surely there, in that 
odorous warmth, that amber light, that fragrance as 
of dew-wet roses, of which the Helianthine poets had 
written in so many different ages. She was drawn 
by it as the young fledged bird is drawn off the nest 
by the charm of the balmy air, the smile of the sun- 
beams dancing. 

So one day Platon Illyris, standing in his doorway, 
leaning on his great olive-wood stick, saw a young 
girl, dusty and travel-stained, and clothed in black, 
come up his grass-grown path between the untrimmed 
rose-bushes. 

She paused within a few yards of the threshold, 
and was silent, being afraid. 

‘ Who are you ? ’ he asked her, in no gentle tones, 
for he was intolerant of trespassers. 

She put back the veil from her head. 
c I am Ilia Illyris. ’ 

‘ Who do you say ? ’ 
c I am Ilia Illyris/ 
c The grandchild of Gelon ? ’ 
c Yes/ 

A wave of emotion passed over his stern features 
as a shadow may flit for a moment over a marble 
bust. 

‘ Why do you come hither ? ’ he asked. 
c I came to see the hero of Argileion and 
Samaris/ 


236 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


A faint smile came on his cold, stern face. They 
were his greatest battles. 

c Is your father dead ? * he asked. 
c Yes. ’ 

c You have no one ? 9 
c No one/ 

‘You cannot stay here/ 
c That must be as you will, sir/ 

He was silent ; the submission, immediate and 
unquestioning, softened him. He called to his 
woman-servant : — 

c Mai'a ! Come hither/ 

The servant answered his call — a strong, tall, 
bronzed figure, in the costume of the country, with 
the sad, patient eyes of a mare in the yoke of a plough. 
‘ I am here, master/ she answered. 
c Take this child within/ he said to her. c Cleanse 
her from the dust, and give her food. Let her rest. 
I will see her later/ 

c Come/ said the woman Maia, showing no sur- 
prise, asking no questions. 

Ilia also said nothing, but stooped and kissed the 
earth ; the earth of her fathers. Then she went in- 
doors in silence with Maia. 

Maia asked her no questions. Whatever the 
master did was well done, and beyond dispute. Thus 
the maiden from the north came to dwell at Aqui- 
legia. 

Here in this spot, beautiful by nature and sad 
from solitude, Ilia passed seven years of her youth, 
joylessly, as youth usually reckons joy, but not 
unhappily ; in a profound calm, an unbroken peace- 
fulness, but also in an unbroken monotony ; and 
monotony, a couch of roses to age, is often a bed of 


XIII 


HELIANTHUS 


2 37 


nettles to youth. She could not even be certain 
that she was welcome ; sometimes she thought that 
she was only tolerated, as the storks were upon the 
roof. 

The years were marked by the coming and going 
of those storks, of the herons, of the swallows, of 
the nightingales, of the thrushes, of the quails. 
There was little else to mark time, except the suc- 
cession of the wild flowers, from the January 
celandine to the December snapdragon. The dis- 
tance was not much more than three miles downward 
through the olives to the seaward road, leading on 
the left to the beach and on the right to the south 
gate of Helios, called the Gate of Olives ; but the 
city might have been a hundred miles distant for 
aught that Illyris or Ilia had to do with it. Their 
one woman-servant went to its market when needful. 
Letters of friends there were none for either of 
them. Now and then Ilia finished some of the fine 
lace of which the art had been taught her in childhood 
by the nuns, sent it to a merchant of the north, and 
received its price. Twice a year she drew her slender 
income from the bank, went into the city, and bought 
for herself a black or a white gown. That was all. 
The rest of her time was passed in attending to house- 
hold matters, and in study ; grave studies in the 
learned volumes, chiefly Greek and Latin, by which 
the house was filled; for the library of Illyris had 
been saved by a friend when he had been first im- 
prisoned and exiled : the friend was dead, but the 
books had been safely carried to Aquilegia when 
Illyris had first arrived there. 

Platon Illyris never interfered with her. He 
oftentimes seemed not even to perceive her presence ; 


23B 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


and he was certainly unconscious of all he owed to 
her for the cleanliness and comfort which sweetened 
his latest years. At other times, but these were 
rare, he spoke to her of his far-away past ; and then 
his eyes would flash and darken, and his voice grow 
stronger, and the fires of his spirit awaken, and the 
days of the past live again for him. 

Ilia had no knowledge of luxury and pleasure, 
and had no need of that to which she was a stranger. 
When she could see the sun rise and set above the 
sea, hear the nightingale’s song in the myrtle thickets, 
breathe fresh, pure air, study the great thoughts of 
the mighty dead, and watch the succession of the 
wild flowers, she was content. 

Illyris had possessed a profound knowledge of his 
fellow-men. No weakness or fault of theirs had 
ever escaped him. He had used them, and cast 
them aside as he did a notched sword. But of 
women he had never had any knowledge. He had 
the oriental view of them — that they were made to 
amuse, and to conceive, and to nourish ; nothing 
else; which is indeed the view taken by Nature 
herself. He did not therefore perceive that Ilia was 
of a finer mould, a firmer texture, than her sex in 
general. But she pleased his taste ; he liked to see 
that one of his own blood was living in the fulness 
of youth and of beauty ; her step was soft, her 
movements were noiseless, her voice was melodious 
and low, her face and form were those of the female 
divinities once worshipped in Helianthus, whose 
lineaments were still seen in many a mask and bust 
turned up in the soil of the woods of Mount Atys 
by charcoal-burners and mushroom-seekers. 

The veins of Illyris had been chilled by deep 


XIII 


HELIANTHUS 


2 39 


wrongs and long solitude, and affections were far 
away from him — as far away as the days of his 
great battles ; yet he was glad to see Ilia beneath 
his roof, to know that she belonged to him. He 
was not unkind, but he was not kind ; he thought 
little about her ; sometimes he was interested in her 
studies of the ancient literature of Helianthus, and 
gave her the aid of his own great knowledge. But 
at other times he would tell her rudely that women 
should not occupy themselves with learning. She 
never contradicted him ; she waited patiently until 
a gentler mood had come to him, and he was again 
disposed to assist her philological or historical studies. 

But she was happier thus than she would have 
been in the noise and turmoil of any of the cities of 
men. . Her temperament was that of the recluse ; 
the stir and struggle, the sights and sounds of the 
world were distressing and odious to her ; even the 
old, still, darksome cities of her mother’s land were 
too. populous for her ; their chimes too noisy, and 
their roofs too close ; their air too full of voices, and 
their hearths too near each other. She wanted vast 
solitudes, great silences, deep shade, wide waters ; 
the vicinity of crowds hurt her like the touch of 
caustic ; she had the soul in her of her people of an 
earlier time who had dwelt in lonely temples and 
served the altars of forest gods. 

To Ilia, departure from Aquilegia would have 
been like the exile from Acadia to Evangeline, like 
the banishment to Danubian darkness to Ovid. She 
had nothing in her of the modern temper — nothing 
of its restlessness, its feverish discontent, its appetite 
for tumult and for change; she asked of life only 
repose, isolation, and the near presence of wild 


240 HELIANTHUS chap, xiii 

nature ; she could live on the scantiest and plainest 
food, but she could not exist in an air breathed 
by drunken crowds. The solitude, the silence, the 
sanctity and majesty of these everlasting hills were 
dear to her; the calmness, the stillness, the deep 
shadows, the clear lights, the sunsets beyond the 
distant sea, the silvery foliage overhanging the 
marble walls, the sense of nearness to a great past 
from which she herself had sprung, to a race which, 
aeons earlier, had been her race, whose glories were 
imperishable in human memory so long as human 
lives endured, — all these rendered her home in the 
olive groves of these classic hills dear to her as no 
other spot on earth could ever be. Her love for it 
was the strongest love she ever yet had known. 


CHAPTER XIV 

The visit of Othyris to Aquilegia was soon repeated, 
and little by little Illyris almost ceased to remember 
that his disciple was a Gunderode, the great-grandson 
of Theodoric. He only saw in him a young man of 
extreme intelligence, of high culture, and of original 
opinions ; one also who had as much humility as 
capacity. He forgot that this scholar might one day 
reign ; or if he did remember it, he only strove the 
more to strengthen in him all the views and prin- 
ciples which made Othyris averse to all that other 
men of his rank considered to be their religion and 
their right. 

‘ What would you have him do if ever he be 
called to the throne ? ’ Ilia asked timidly one day 
after the departure of Othyris. 
c Refuse it/ said Platon Illyris. 
c Would that remove his responsibility ? ’ she said, 
apprehensive of appearing rash and rude. £ If we 
drop a burden do we not still remain bound to 
account for it ? ’ 

Illyris was silent a little while. 
c You think for yourself. That is well. I admit 
that it is well. You are bold. You are an Illyris/ 
he said. c When there are two evils betwixt 
which a man must choose, he can but take the 

r 241 


242 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


lesser. He is not a god to change the face of the 
world.' 

c But, as king, could he not do some good ? ' 
Platon Illyris smiled grimly. 

c The strongest swimmer in a stream stronger 
than himself is swept away on it. There is a putrid 
and pestiferous current always circling round every 
throne of which no occupant of it can escape the 
miasma. Carolus Magnus himself, were he reign- 
ing to-day, could not resist the sycophant, the 
politician, the financier, the pressure of the Press.' 

c Might the Duke of Othyris not create a republic 
and lead it ? ’ 

‘He might perhaps if occasion served; but that 
would be to turn traitor to his own race. A man of 
honour could not do that. Noblesse oblige ; and it 
is an inexorable obligation with loyal characters. 
His is loyal. He is not strong, but he is sincere.’ 
c Then what future will he have ? ’ 
c Who can say ? I doubt me he will end ill. 
Men do not love an honest man, whether prince or 
peasant. But get you to your household work, 
child. These questions are not for women.' 

He regarded her as veterans two thousand years 
before in Helianthus had regarded their females. 
He looked after her as without protest she silently 
left his chamber. For the first time her beauty, 
her grace, her dignity were apparent to him ; for the 
first time he perceived that she was no mere spinner 
at the distaff, or housewife in a dwelling-place. 
She was an Illyris ; she was not as other women 
were. 

Did she dream dreams of a future in which this 
young man and she might have a mutual part? 


XIV 


HELIANTHUS 


2 43 


Did she see in herself a purer Eudocia, a more un- 
selfish Irene, a Joan of Arc victorious and beloved ? 

Who could tell the thoughts of a mind divided 
at once by virginal unconsciousness of its own in- 
stincts and by the force inherited from a martial 
race ? Memories of the springtime of human life, of 
the awakening of the soul and the senses, were far 
away from Illyris, so far, so very far, and covered 
with the fallen leaves of so many passionless and 
joyless years, yet they arose in his mind now. 

c I am no fit guardian of youth, of a maiden’s 
youth,’ he thought. c I am so old, so old ! An 
aged hound, toothless, and chained, and feared by 
none, although once he kept all at bay.’ 

And the heart of the hero of Argileion and 
Samaris was as a stone heavy in his breast. 

Seeing that he was in sorrow Ajax came to him, 
and laid his head on the knees of his master and 
friend. 

c Ajax,’ said Illyris, as he laid his hand on the 
dog’s head, c ask not of the gods to live long, my 
friend. Age is but an unkinder death ; conscious of 
itself and powerless to rise. Readers of history 
weep for Germanicus, for Marcellus, for John of 
Austria, for Gaston de Foix — Oh fools! Thrice 
happy were those youths ! ’ 

c Elim of Gunderode is a theorist, an idealist,’ he 
would say to Ilia. c It is not with theories, nor 
with ideals, that men are governed. It is by the 
sword, by the fist ; by the force of the brain, not by 
its fancies. His mind is rich in imagination, but it 
is poor in will-power. To act strongly he must be 
strongly excited ; when the excitement passes his 


244 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


will drops like a burnt-out match. It is volition 
rather than intellect which makes the man who rules 
others succeed in being accepted and obeyed by 
them. This young prince does not believe in his 
own powers ; therefore men will never long believe 
in him. He is full of doubts and scruples ; how 
should he enforce his will upon others ? He has no 
will! He is too undecided to govern men. Inde- 
cision is an intellectual defect ; it accompanies acute 
perception, it belongs to philosophic doubt, but it 
paralyses action. The student may be undecided, 
indeed should be, for he sees all the facts of a ques- 
tion, and is not called on to turn theory into fact ; 
but the leader of men must know what he wishes, 
what he intends, what he rules, and must never 
waver in his determination and his choice/ 

c Tell me, sir, what ought I to do in the years 
to come, should I live to see them ? * Othyris had 
said to him one day. 

c I am too old to counsel youth,’ answered Illyris. 
c The world of to-day is not mine ; it is yours. All 
that the men of my time held sacred seems foolish- 
ness to those of yours. I cannot judge for your 
generation. I am out of its orbit. Can the dark and 
dreary Saturn judge of the green and sunlit earth ? ’ 

c In truth, sir, has humanity altered much since 
the days of Plato or Pericles ? ’ 

C I know not. It has altered much since mine. 
I am old, very old ; I cannot judge for a young man. 
Your position is difficult, and may become more so; 
but I should not dare to say what road you should 
take out of it, or even if you should attempt to get 
out of it.’ 


XIV HELIANTHUS 245 

c Would you counsel me?’ said Othyris ; he 
looked at Ilia. 

She answered : — 

‘ No. I do not even know my own generation. 
How can I judge anything for any one else ?' 

‘ But were you myself, what would you do ? ’ 

She hesitated. She knew what she would do ; 
she would surrender all things to be free. She 
looked at Illy ris. 

‘ When you, sir, made your choice of life, did you 
doubt long ? Or did you see your path clearly and 
at once ? ' 

c The stranger ruled in my land/ replied Illyris. 
c It was easy in my day to see where duty pointed 
and honour and manhood led. There is no joy so 
great as a clear, straight road. This young lord's 
road is neither. Do what he will, he will repent/ 

Othyris smiled sorrowfully. 

c In doubt do nothing ; so a statesman said. That 
is probably how my life will drift away ; in doing 
nothing, changing nothing, desiring vaguely and 
uselessly, and aimlessly regretting.' 

The still clear eyes of the nonagenarian looked at 
him with some compassion. 

c Enjoy your youth,' he said. c Let men alone. 
They will not thank you if you suffer for them, nor 
are they worth it.’ 

c I cannot enjoy,' said Othyris with a certain 
passion in his voice, c and I have no youth, because 
I have never been free. I am like the planets ; I 
cannot escape from my atmosphere and its pressure.’ 

c Young man,' said Illyris, c we in my days were 
not theorists ; we acted. We followed our instincts ; 
we did not analyse them. True, it was the day of 


246 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


great poets. But they were few, they must always 
be few ; the rest of us lived our odes, we did not 
write them.' 

£ You carved them on granite with your swords/ 

£ Eh ! Who reads what we wrote ? History, you 
will say. But will the future care for history ? The 
world cares but little now. A man’s lifetime of 
study is pressed into a dozen volumes. The vol- 
umes stand on shelves and librarians dust them. 
That is all.’ 

£ Sir, I want sympathy and you give me a 
stone.’ 

£ To want sympathy is in itself a sign of weakness. 
Learn to stand alone,’ said Illyris with some scorn ; 
he had been a very strong man, needing neither 
counsellor nor comfort. 

Ilia made a murmur of dissent and of deprecation. 

£ We cannot give you bread, sir,’ she said to 
Elim, £ because you must eat at other and higher 
tables than ours.’ 

£ Let me take the humblest place at yours,’ he 
murmured. 

£ No,’ said Platon Illyris, and he struck his hands 
on the arms of his great chair. £ You are a good 
youth, I think, but you are who you are. No 
Gunderode breaks bread with an Illyris, either in 
fact or in metaphor. Get you hence.’ 

£ Go,’ said Ilia gently but with firmness. 

Elim rose, bowed low and went. He had been 
given the wholesome bread which he never tasted 
anywhere but here : plain truth. It was bitter, yet 
welcome to a cloyed palate. Nowhere else in the 
whole crowded world would he have been thus dis- 
missed ; nowhere else would homage, respect, and 


XIV 


HELIANTHUS 


247 


welcome have been refused him. He went out under 
the silvery shadows of the giant olives where the 
cushats were cooing and the blackcaps were singing. 
Deep rest and fragrant silence lay like a benedic- 
tion on the whole hillside. The only unrest there, 
was in his own soul. 

Ilia and Illyris ate of the meal which Mai'a had 
prepared ; it was frugal but well-cooked ; the linen 
was homespun but lavender-scented, the table had in 
its centre an old pottery dish filled with flowers. Ilia 
would have been quite willing that Othyris should 
have broken bread with them there, for false shame, 
born of the false standards of the world, had never 
touched her. She would have given him the best she 
had willingly, but she would not have been troubled 
by any fear lest that best should seem meagre to him. 

When their repast was ended Illyris went back to 
his book-room and seated himself again in his great 
black chair; the window was open, early roses nodded 
between the iron grating, the pure mountain air blew 
through the room, birds sang in the myrtle bushes 
and in the fresh early leafage of the poplar trees. 

Ilia brought him his Eastern water-pipe. 

‘Sir,’ she said with hesitation, c why are you so stern 
to the King’s son ? He has a great reverence for you, 
and surely he is not guilty of the sins of his race.’ 

‘ Perhaps not,’ answered Illyris, ‘ but he cannot 
wash their blood out of his veins, — nor that of the 
tyrant of the North. He is sincere, I believe,’ he 
added, ‘ but he has nothing to do with us. He must 
go whither his birth calls him. Between him and us 
there can be no amity.’ 

c Might he not one day realise your own dreams 
for Helianthus ? ’ 


248 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. XIV 


Illyris laughed bitterly, with the bitterness of one 
who jests at his own expense. 

c Child, my dreams were fair and fond, but they 
were illusions. I did not reckon with the meanness of 
men, with the sordidness of their ambitions, with the 
dwarfing and deadening of modern feeling, with the 
corruption which putrefies all public life. Fool that 
I was! — I dreamt of an ideal State, and I drenched 
my mother-earth with blood, for what? For what ? 
That her sons might sink under a weight of arms, and 
her children sicken and die for want of bread ! God 
forgive me my blindness! Fool, oh fool that I was!' 
c But you drove out the foreigner ? * 
c Ay ! — and the Gunderode and their tax-officers 
and their drill-sergeants reign in his place ! What 
good have I done to the people ? I have not even 
given them liberty. If they forget that I ever lived, 
have I the right to blame them.’ 

His head sank on his breast, and a great sigh es- 
caped him. He had driven out the stranger — yes, 
— but was Helianthus happier or freer ? Was not 
her liberty a myth ? Was she not fed on steel, and 
the scanty cones of the maize ? Did not the children 
come to the birth only to toil as soon as they could 
crawl? The foreign sentinel was no more at the 
gates, but the foreign usurer was within them. What 
had been gained ? His victories had been great ; his 
country had been to him as a fair woman, bound a 
slave in a mart, and set free by his sword. But what 
was she now ? Prostituted to the Jew, or famished 
in the alien’s factories, or starved and sunburnt in 
the mortgaged fields ! His long life, his endless sac- 
rifices, were as naught. 


CHAPTER XV 


The funeral of Domitian Corvus was passing 
through Helios ; a funeral provided at the cost of 
the State, imposing, long, stately, with troops keep- 
ing the streets, and crowds driven back by carabineers, 
women fainting, children crushed, barriers breaking, 
clubs crowded, flags at half-mast, — no accompani- 
ment or attribute of dignity being wanting. It was 
really a pity that Corvus had not eyes to see it from 
his bier, for it would have rejoiced his arrogant and 
self-admiring soul, and have assured him that he had 
been really that ancient Roman whom in life he had 
delighted to be called. 

The golden tassels of the pall were held by eight 
Ministers of the Crown of past and present admin- 
istrations, several of whom had at times been his 
enemies; and heartily as they had often cursed him, 
they had never done so with more intensity than 
they now cursed him under their breath, as they, all 
men past middle age, plodded under the burning sun, 
on the heated granite of the paven streets, up to the 
Cathedral of St. Athanasius, where Corvus, who had 
been an avowed freethinker all his life, was most ap- 
propriately to be interred with all the grandest cere- 
monial of the Church. 

Corvus had been many things in his day, and his 
day had been long, for he was eighty-nine years of 

249 


250 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


age when he died. He had been a red-hot revolu- 
tionist, a conspirator against all powers and authori- 
ties, an exile without bread or tobacco, a refugee in 
foreign garrets and wine-houses, a hidden and hunted 
man in the cellars of Helios, until, on the death of 
King Theodoric, a general amnesty for political of- 
fenders having been proclaimed, Illyris alone ex- 
cluded, he returned to his native country, found 
work as a lawyer, got himself elected deputy, took 
the oath of allegiance to the Gunderode, and sat for 
many long sessions as an extreme Radical. He 
made himself feared both in the Chambers and out- 
side them ; he had led a turbulent, violent, scandalous 
life, but he rose step by step, and began to loom 
large before the eyes of men; he had no single 
scruple of any sort to drag him backward ; he pos- 
sessed a domineering, overbearing, insolent temper, 
which struck like an iron mace upon the fears of his 
fellow-men; he used this mace without mercy; he 
was sunk to his throat in scandals of every sort, but 
he came out of them, as out of a mud-bath, only the 
stronger. He was covered with filth from head to 
foot ; but he shook it off into the gutter, threw it in 
his enemies’ eyes, and passed on victorious. From a 
revolutionary deputy he became a radical Minister, 
and, once a Minister, he slipped his skin as easily as 
snakes slip theirs in springtime, and became a reac- 
tionist of the first water ; and when disturbances oc- 
curred during his premiership he used the mitrailleuse 
and the musketry volley with as much firmness and 
ferocity as though he had been all his life an abso- 
lutist. He obtained all the highest decorations of 
Europe, hobnobbed with emperors, and was regarded 
by a large party as the saviour of Helianthus ; that 


XV 


HELIANTHUS 


251 


he had plunged her into disastrous wars, seduced her 
with injurious ambitions, led her blindfold to the 
brink of bankruptcy, filled her prisons with her 
young men, and cultivated corruption upon her soil 
as a plant whose rank poison was the most fragrant 
of perfumes, — these things mattered not at all to 
his apostles and his adorers. He was the great Cor- 
vus, and when a strong wave of national indignation 
had at last swept him away into private life, his par- 
tisans had rabidly defended his name, and his south- 
ern retreat had become a place of pilgrimage for the 
faithful. And now he was being buried with all the 
honours of the State. 

King John in council with his Ministers had de- 
cided that the State could do no less for the remains 
of this its most faithful servant. King John had 
always admired him, and had supported him, often to 
the injury of the Crown and country. 

Domitian Corvus had been the only Minister of 
strength and will who had been ever wholly accept- 
able to the King. In this old man the King had 
recognised a craft so cunning, a force so pitiless, a 
brain so utterly unscrupulous, that he could not but 
admire them ; and found his master in the science of 
human nature. When the scandals due to financial 
speculation, corruption, and dishonesty became so 
discreditable to Corvus and his family, and so 
flagrant that they could no longer be concealed, and 
when even the very elastic moralities of the Helian- 
thine nation would endure him no more in power, 
his fall had been sincerely mourned by his royal 
master. True, Corvus had been very old when he 
had at last been driven into private life ; but age had 
never diminished his infinite resources, his relentless 


252 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


cruelty, or his consummate cunning. There was not 
his equal in the ranks of those politicians from whom 
the Crown had to select its public servants. Person- 
ally, the King did not attach any great blame to 
corruption. History was full of it. Even Scipio 
Africanus did not escape its reproach. 

The strongest man is a weak one without money; 
naturally a strong man uses his strength to get money 
where and how he can. The King was rather dis- 
posed to blame Corvus for not having taken more ; 
for not having enriched himself so that there could 
not have been room in his career for debts, and 
seizures, and similar blotches and blemishes, which 
are really only excusable in feeble men. It should 
surely be only simpletons who let their bills be pro- 
tested, their womenkind be sued by tradespeople, 
their artistic collections sold at auction. When 
Corvus had excused himself for having neglected 
his own affairs because he had been so absorbed in 
the affairs of the nation, the excuse seemed to the 
monarch the only puerile speech he had ever heard 
from his great Minister. 

The public in a measure held the same opinion as 
the King, and considered his errors of venality to be 
pardonable in Corvus, even as history regards those 
of Verulam. 

Although Corvus had disappeared from public life 
under a quagmire of scandal, there had always been 
the possibility of his resurrection even at eighty odd 
years of age. At his death, therefore, all the other 
Ministers, both in and out of office, felt unspeakably 
relieved that the old rogue was nailed down in a 
triple coffin, and would be buried under a weight of 
marble, never more to reappear. Meantime they all 


XV 


HELIANTHUS 


2 53 


wore black, looked sad and inconsolable, and spoke 
with reverence of this dear colleague of their man- 
hood, the honoured master of their youth. There- 
fore, of course, they had been obliged to be the first 
to consider a public funeral a fitting homage to the 
great departed. 

c The damned old brute/ thought Kantakuzene, 
c he was the strongest of us all. He never had a 
qualm. He never had a scruple. He struck hard 
— and he never missed. He minded exposure no 
more than a model minds it in the studio. He cared 
no more when the nation cursed him than Richelieu 
cared when the people cursed the Robe Rouge. He 
was strong, amazingly strong/ 

Kantakuzene, as he toiled under the weight of the 
coffin, sighed, for he himself was not very strong ; 
he was only exceedingly subtle and shrewd, talented, 
eloquent, and adroit. 

He had indeed that kind of strength which con- 
sists in knowing where one’s own weakness lies, and 
also he had no superior in the useful talent of making 
black look white, and a mere expediency appear a 
patriotic ability ; but the merciless strength which 
had made Corvus hesitate at no enormity, no be- 
trayal, no change of front, and no acceptance of 
iniquity — this he had not, and therefore he knew 
that he would never equal Corvus in the estimate of 
other men. 

The clang of the brazen kettle-drum echoes 
farther, and its sound lasts longer, than the melody 
of the flute. 

Othyris was moved to a hot indignation and an 
acute sense of shame for his nation and his family as 
he heard the fine bands of the King’s Foot Guards 


254 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


playing the Dead March from Saul , which came to 
his ear from the distance as he went up the steep 
road outside the Gate of Olives on his way to 
Aquilegia. 

‘They shall know there that I have no share in 
the glorification of a scoundrel/ he thought. 

From the time of his early boyhood, when he had 
put his hands behind his back one day at the Soleia 
to avoid touching the hand of Corvus, who was then 
a Minister of the Crown, he had abhorred the con- 
duct, public or private, of that politician. 

The man had begun life a red-hot revolutionary, 
and had passed the last thirty years of his existence as 
an absolutist. He had abjured in age every principle 
which he had held in youth. He had in later years 
filled the prisons of Helianthus with young men who 
had merely held the same political creed as he had 
himself professed at the same age as theirs. He had 
played Judas to his country's Christ. When war had 
served the purpose of his Cabinet he had sent tens 
of thousands of lads to the shambles for no gain, no 
reason, no purpose, except that it was in the interests 
of his own retention of office to do so. His old age, 
cruel, venal, crafty, shameless, strong, had gone down 
in dishonour and dishonesty; yet he was being borne 
to his last home with pomp and with applause ! Too 
many men had feared him, too many had been com- 
promised by him, too many now felt uneasy that 
their letters and their signatures were locked up in 
those boxes which would henceforth be the property 
either of his heirs or of the Government, for any one 
of influence in Helianthus to oppose the deference 
paid to his remains. 

The world thinks the woman's prostitution of 


XV 


HELIANTHUS 


2 55 


beauty a greater sin than the man’s prostitution of 
intellect, but it is not so. Of the two, the prostitu- 
tion of the mind is more far-reaching, more profound, 
and more evil in its effects on others, than the sale of 
mere physical charms : the woman sells herself alone, 
the man often sells his generation, his country, and 
his disciples, with himself. History redresses the 
false balance, — so it is said. But how can we be 
sure of that which we shall not see ? For it is not 
contemporary history which dares to tell the truth. 

From the path on the hillside leading to Aqui- 
legia, Othyris saw in the distance the long line of the 
funeral procession passing along one of the great 
marble quays towards the Cathedral : afar off it 
looked as small as a regiment of ants. He paused 
a moment, and thought: — 

c Illyris in obscurity and poverty ; Corvus in 
pomp and fame ! How little is the land worthy of 
her freedom ! She forgets the hero, and admires the 
knave ! How little are nations worthy of service 
and of sacrifice ! They feed the wolf off silver, and 
leave the watch-dogs famished on the stones.’ 

With a sadder heart he took his way upward to 
the lowly home of the victor of Argileion and 
Samaris, leaving the celebration of the triumph of 
Corvus behind him in the city which had forgotten 
Illyris. 

Illyris had grown used to his occasional visits ; 
and if he did not welcome, did not reject them. 
Their discourse was usually on impersonal subjects, 
themes which were of equal interest to them both as 
scholars and philologists, students of history and of 
mankind : he who had made so large a portion of 
the past history of Helianthus, and he by whom the 


2 $6 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


future history of Helianthus might be made, met on 
the neutral ground of mutual love for the country, 
for its language, its traditions, its people. 

‘He is a hybrid,' said Illyris once in his absence; 
‘more Guthonic than aught else; but, as far as his 
looks and his mind go, he might be a pure-bred 
Helianthine.' 

Illyris could give no higher praise. 

This day Illyris sat erect in his great chair of 
ebony and black leather ; his eyes were wide open 
and ablaze with light, a scornful wrath was on his 
features ; and his hands struck with rage a folio 
volume of which the yellow ribbed pages were opened 
on his knee. 

c Corvus ! — buried by the State ! ' he cried, his 
white beard trembling with his wrath and his disdain ; 
and he laughed long and loud, a terrible ironical 
laughter, scorching as caustic. 

Othyris was silent : Illyris sat silent also for a 
while, his white beard drooping on his breast. 

c Corvus — buried by the State,' he muttered 
again. 

£ What come you hither for ? ' he cried, as he 
recognised Othyris. ‘Why are you not behind the 
bier of the man your father honoured ? ' 

‘ I came to show you, sir, that I have nothing to 
do with what I hold to be a national disgrace.' 

‘ Corvus was a Minister of your House. Are 
none of your princes behind his corpse ? ' 

‘ I know not. I can but answer for myself.' 

‘You are a Gunderode ! Corvus was your 
servant.' 

‘ Not mine.' 

‘ Get you away from here. Go and join the 


XV 


HELIANTHUS 


257 


Ministers of the Crown. Go and pray for Corvus’ 
soul/ 

He laughed cruelly, terribly. All the eloquence 
which had once swayed the minds of the multitudes 
as a wind sways the sea waves had returned to him 
for a moment. Suddenly he paused. 

c You are the King’s son,’ he said abruptly. c Go, 
go, and tell your sire how Platon Xllyris judges the 
knave he has delighted to honour/ 

Then he beat his fist on the folio volume lying open 
on his knees, and a wave of ironical disdainful laughter 
passed over his features, illumining their apathy as 
lightning might play upon a corpse. 

‘ Corvus buried by the State ! ’ he repeated yet 
again, and a deep scornful laughter shook his white 
beard, his bowed colossal frame. 

c I remember Corvus,’ he said, c as a youth. There 
were ten years between him and me. I had just 
raised my first regiment of volunteers on my own 
estates. He was with us in the early years. But he 
was useless as a soldier. His strength was in his 
tongue. Well, truly has it served him, that brazen, 
lying, boastful tongue, that skilful, crafty, flattering, 
and bullying tongue ! It was his all, but he won the 
world with it/ 

‘ Yes, sir,’ said Othyris, c and the insignia of the 
great Orders of the world lie on his coffin. But 
history will not honour him; and it will honour 
you/ 

c Who knows P ’ muttered Ulyris. 1 Is history the 
redresser of contemporary injustice, as we like to 
believe, or is it but the repeater of all the false judg- 
ments of that past which it often ignorantly chronicles 
and criticises ? Who can tell P Clio is a great Muse, 


25 8 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


but I fear she only sees through a smoked lens. It 
is hard to learn the exact truth of a little incident 
which occurs a mile from our door. It must be 
harder still to judge with any accuracy the deeds and 
the men of ages long gone by. Probably, if they 
write of me in time to come, they will say that I 
was a headstrong fool, and Corvus a great and a wise 
man.’ 

c They will say that, when they shall also say that 
Caesar was a fool and Croesus a hero/ 

You flatter me, young man. You give me 
honey to eat because I am in my second childhood/ 
‘No, sir, my reverence for you is sincere. I 
should not have crossed your threshold were it not 
so/ 

‘Well, well, I believe you/ said Illyris, with some 
emotion ; c though that you should feel this, is strange 
in a prince of the House of Gunderode/ 

Here I am not a prince ; I am a neophyte/ 

‘ You have a pretty turn of speech. Almost too 
pretty. Honey — honey ! ’ 

May not truth be sweet sometimes, sir ? Why 
should it always be bitter ? ’ J 

Illyris smiled faintly. 

Heed him not, child/ he muttered to Ilia. c He 
has too deft a tongue/ 

Then the old man’s head drooped. He was 
silent ; his eyes closed ; the intermittent strength of 
his extreme age gave way to the dreamy stupor of 
railing powers fatigued by momentary excitement. 

It was so hot, so hot/ he muttered ; ‘it was the 
twentieth day of June; he was there; he had volun- 
teered, but he did not fight. He never fought on 
any field. If he says that he did, he lies. My right 


XV 


HELIANTHUS 


259 


line was breaking. We were hard pressed. I said 
to him, “ Ride you to my son Gelon, and bid him 
come up with all his force, or the day may be lost/’ 
He rode away, but he did not ride to Gelon. He said 
afterwards that he mistook the road. Gelon did not 
come. It was like Grouchy at Waterloo. And the 
sun was so hot, so hot ! Men dropped dead : un- 
wounded, sunstricken. Our line wavered — almost 
broke. Then I cried to them : “ Rally, my children ; 
rally. Be firm, and the day is won ” ; and they gave 
a great cheer, half dead though they were, and 
they followed me, and the sun went down, down, 
down ; and the wheat was drenched in blood ; and 
my son Constantine lay in the ripe corn, face down- 
ward, shot through the brain. But the day was ours.’ 

Then again he was mute, and the light died out 
of his eyes, and the stupor of senility crept back 
over his features. 

c He speaks of Argileion ? ’ said Othyris, under 
his breath, to Ilia Illyris. 

c No, of Samaris. It was at Samaris that Con- 
stantine, my grand-uncle, was killed. Argileion was 
fought in the autumn when the fields were bare ; 
Samaris when the wheat was ripe.' 

Othyris was silent. These great combats had in 
their ultimate issue placed his race upon the throne 
of Helianthus ; and the hero who had gained these 
victories at such vast odds was left here, forgotten, 
unhonoured, unaided, allowed only on sufferance to 
end his last years on his native soil ! 

Othyris felt as though he stood knee-deep in that 
sea of blood which had dyed red the amber wheat 
of fifty summers gone. 

c It is terrible ! * he muttered. 


26 o 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c Yes, it is terrible ! ’ said Ilia Illyris. c Terrible 
indeed that all that bloodshed, all that heroism, all 
those glorious hopes and dreams, should have had no 
other result, served no other ultimate end, than to 
crown an alien race on the Acropolis of Helios ! ’ 

Othyris grew red, then pale ; stung by anger and 
by mortification. What other living creature would 
have dared to say such a thing as this in his 
presence ? 

But had he not said it to himself ? 

He looked at her, and saw that she was perfectly 
serene and indifferent to any effect which her words 
might have on him. Her head was slightly bent ; 
her eyelids were drooping over the splendour of her 
eyes, as she looked down at the lace she was making ; 
her hands continued their delicate evolutions. 

Suddenly Illyris raised his head; his brain had 
cleared; the passing clouds had lifted. 

‘Who followed?’ he asked. 

Ilia arose and approached his chair. 

‘ Who followed what ? ’ she asked gently. 

‘ Who followed the coffin of Corvus ? Not my 
veterans ? ’ : 

She was silent ; Othyris also. 

‘ Not my veterans ? ’ 

c ^h ere are f ew living, very few, sir,’ she answered. 

‘I know — Death has all my comrades: Death 
and Age. But those who still live ? — they were not 
behind that traitor’s bier ? ’ 

She was silent. 

. ‘ Answer ! said Illyris, striking his staff with 
violence upon the floor. 

‘The few who still live were there, sir, — yes.’ 

They have lived too long, then — as I have done! 


XV 


HELIANTHUS 


261 


My men behind the bier of Corvus ! Did the 
Apostles who were faithful follow the rotten corpse 
of Judas ? * 

c Perhaps, sir, they thought only of his early 
life. He was sincere once, was he not? * 

c Once ! Because Iscariot was once an innocent 
child at his mother’s breast was he the less accursed ? 
Maybe Corvus was sincere in his youth. I cannot 
answer for the hidden hearts of men. But, if it be 
so, that does but deepen the blackness of his sin. It 
is but a reason the more for every honest man to 
spit in scorn upon the earth of his grave. He took 
the oath of allegiance ; he, a republican, a patriot, 
took the oath of allegiance to a monarchy ; he sat in 
the parliaments of a monarchy ; he crawled through 
crooked ways to popularity and power ; he wore the 
badges and ribands of the sovereigns of Europe ; he 
drove the youth of Helianthus to the African 
shambles that their blood might give him the purple 
dye of his own aggrandisement ; he licked the dust 
before the path of kings ; he cringed, he slobbered, 
he lied, he flattered, he struck Liberty in the throat, 
and he kissed the Gyges of the Guthones on both 
cheeks; — and you tell me he was sincere in his 
youth ! You are fools ! You are fools ! Such a man 
is false whilst he is still an embryon in his mother’s 
womb ! A traitor is vile even whilst he is still but 
a germ in an ovary ! 5 

Then, once more, the fire faded from his eyes, his 
voice dropped into silence, and he fell back heavily, 
and with exhaustion, into the chair from which he 
had momentarily risen. His countenance lost all 
illumination, all expression. The flame of the tired 
spirit, fanned by wrath into an instant’s light, 


26 2 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. XV 


flickered and died down. The intense emotions 
aroused in him by the remembrance of a traitor were 
succeeded by the dull gloom of age which recognises 
its own torpor and impotence, its own loneliness, its 
own inutility. 

c Go/ said Ilia, in a low tone ; c go; he likes to see 
you sometimes, but to-day you can only offend him 
and do him harm/ 

Othyris hesitated, and stood an instant before the 
chair of Illyris. 

c Sir/ he said, in a low tone, c I sent no condolence 
to the house of Corvus ; I sent no representative to 
his funeral, or laurel to lay upon his tomb. I 
consider that my father had no greater enemy than 
this man who called himself his most devoted 
servant, and who perhaps believed himself to be so. 
No one ever widened the breach between the throne 
and the people with more evil success than Corvus.' 

Illyris made him no reply ; he did not seem to 
hear ; his thoughts were far away in the greatness of 
his past. 

c Why will he not believe in me? Why should 
I be here except in sincerity and in respect ? ’ said 
Othyris, turning to Ilia Illyris. 

c It is not you whom he mistrusts. It is your 
race/ she replied. 

c Then he is unjust ! ’ 

* He is old ! ’ she said, with a sigh. 


CHAPTER XVI 


Othyris followed Illia across the small flagged 
entrance into the opposite room, which was a 
counterpart of the one occupied by Platon Illyris. 

On a table stood the pillow and cushion on which 
she made her lace ; a brown jug, holding field 
flowers ; a small antique bronze which had been 
found buried deep in the soil when a great olive 
had been uprooted in a storm, a figure representing 
Narcissus; some volumes of old books, companions 
to those in the other chamber ; nothing else. 

To him it seemed wonderful to see a woman of 
her beauty and high intelligence cheerfully executing 
the humblest kind of work, and leading a life entirely 
monotonous and lonely. c How Gertrude would 
admire her/ he thought ; but he knew that to bring 
her and his sister-in-law into contact was as impos- 
sible as to bring the stars of Cassiopeia into the con- 
stellation of Perseus. They were divided for ever by 
those barriers which are at once the most impassable 
and the most purely illusory ; those that mankind 
has constructed for its own bondage, the barriers of 
caste and of custom. 

£ May I see some of your lace ? ’ he asked with 
hesitation, fearful of offending her. 

‘ Oh, yes/ — she opened an old olive-wood cabinet 

263 


264 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


and took out a cobweb of fine threads with lilies and 
grasses worked on it ; the beautiful old pillow lace 
of other centuries admirably revived. 

f It is beautiful indeed ! * he exclaimed, and gazed 
on it with the appreciation and comprehension of a 
connoisseur. It was beautiful as the Ivory Tower 
had been ; beautiful as every work of art must be, 
into which enter the mind, the devotion, the self- 
sacrifice, the spirituality, of its creator. It was a 
little filmy thing, light as air, fragile as a dew-ball in 
the grass; a rough touch could have destroyed it in 
a second of time ; but it had true art in it as surely 
as have the Taj Mahal, the Mona Lisa, the belfry 
of Giotto, the verse of Shelley, the Hermes of the 
Vatican. 

c I wish my sister-in-law, the Crown Princess, 
could see this, he added. c She is a great lover of 
lace. Might I take it to her ? She would know 
how to appreciate it/ 

‘ It is not for private sale, sir/ she said curtly ; 
and she put back the lace into its cupboard. 

c I did not intend to offend you/ he said with 
patience and humility. c I merely wished to give my 
sister-in-law a great pleasure; for such work as 
yours is extremely rare/ 

But he felt that his purpose had been divined, 
and its disguise rudely brushed aside. It was quite 
true that the Crown Princess was a collector and 
judge of hand-made laces ; but he knew that it 
would not have been for her sake that he would have 
desired to purchase that exquisite fairies' web for 
some fabulous price. 

/ Surely/ he added, c surely you do not create all 
this beauty only to put it away in a shut drawer?' 


XVI 


HELIANTHUS 


26 5 


f Oh, no/ she said coldly, ‘ it is all bespoken by a 
lace merchant of the north. Whenever I complete 
a piece it goes to him. I would ask you, sir/ she 
added, a faint colour rising over her face, ‘ never to 
speak of this to my great-grandfather; he is not 
aware of it; he would not understand. But it 
would certainly displease him that a descendant of 
his, an Illyris, should take money from a tradesman. 
He thinks that his own means are enough for 
everything, but they are not. It is necessary to add 
to them/ J 

I understand, said Othyris. ‘ At his great age 
men do not easily learn new lessons, and his pride 
was always great/ 
c Justly so/ 
c Justly ; yes, indeed/ 

He might have ruled this country, had he 
chosen/ 

Othyris smiled slightly, but his face flushed. 

_ c I believe that he could/ he answered. c History 
will acknowledge that he could, and that he did 
not do so from the noblest of all motives: the 
reluctance to cause and carry on civil war. But is 
it generous to say this to me ? ’ 

‘There is neither generosity nor meanness in the 
statement of a fact. All that was done in that re- 
mote time has long passed into history/ 

‘A history of which all the nobility is with your 
race ; all the ingratitude with mine/ 

She was silent ; to deny the obvious, to excuse the 
heroic, was not in the character of this daughter of 
heroes. 

Othyris was wounded; and he was angered with 
himself for being so. He loathed the whole period 


266 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


of that troubled time in which his great-grandsire 
had beaten out a crown of gold and iron in the 
furnace of war ; a crown which would never have 
been his, or his descendants’, if Platon Illyris had 
so willed. 

Whenever he passed the great sepulchre, called in 
Helios the House of the Immortals, with its peristyle 
of marble and porphyry and its dome of glittering 
gilded tiles, which covered the remains of Theodoric 
of Gunderode and which from a cypress-crowned 
eminence dominated the city, he looked away from it 
and felt neither reverence nor gratitude to this mem- 
ory so near to him which was already swelling into 
legend. All that Ilia had said had been true ; but 
it was its truth which hurt him. If Platon Illyris 
had chosen, once upon a time, the Gunderode had 
never reigned beside the Mare Magnum, nor been 
laid to rest in the Helianthine Pantheon. 

The voice of Ilia roused him, clear as the sound 
of a silver bell, but cold as a flake of snow. 

c Sir, you will pardon me if I leave you. I have 
my household duties.’ 

c If my sister-in-law, the Crown Princess, would 
receive you, would you allow me to take vou to 
her?’ 

c No, I would not.’ 

The words were ungracious but the tone was 
gentle. 

c She is a good woman.’ 

c I have always heard so.’ 

c Well, then — why ? ’ 

‘ You must know I would not pass the threshold 
of a Gunderode.’ 

c It is you who are prejudiced.’ 


XVI 


HELIANTHUS 


267 


c Consistency is not prejudice/ 
c You need a female friend/ 

c If I did, I should not seek one in a palace. But 
I do not/ 

£ The Princess can be a very warm friend/ 
c She could not be so to me, nor I to her/ 
c Wherefore ? ’ 

c You must know very well. I do not think that 
you should even speak of such a thing/ 

He did know ; he knew that it was impossible to 
bring together these two women who were so far 
asunder through every circumstance and feeling of 
their lives, every sentiment, habit, tradition, and 
belief. The prejudices of his relative might, he 
thought, have been vanquished, for he had gained 
her goodwill ; but the more stubborn resistance of 
the daughter of Illyris would be unconquerable ; she 
would have thought herself unworthy to bear the 
great name of her people if she had ever crossed 
the threshold of the residence of any member of 
the reigning family. 

‘You may be sure of my absolute discretion as 
regards your beautiful point d' aiguille ,’ answered 
Othyris. £ But I wish you would transfer your fa- 
vours from this northern trader to my sister-in-law/ 

‘ The Crown Princess can purchase it from the 
trader, sir/ 

£ May I take her the address of the merchant ? 9 
She hesitated a moment, then wrote a name and 
address on a slip of paper and gave it to him. He 
thanked her; then still lingered, loth to leave the 
subject or the place. 

£ Is not such fine work as that very trying to the 
eyes ? * he said. £ I have always heard that it is/ 


268 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c I do not find it so ; however, it is perhaps 
because I only work about two hours in the early 
morning; rarely afterwards/ 

c But would it not be more agreeable to you to 
give your creations direct into the hands of apprecia- 
tive persons than to let them go through those of 
mere tradesmen to any buyer? ’ 

‘No: the one would mean patronage; the other 
is independence/ 

He saw what she meant and respected her mean- 
ing. 

‘ I only regret/ he said, c that you will not do me 
the honour to treat me as a friend/ 

‘ There can be no friendship between one of your 
House and one of mine/ she answered. 

He did not urge the point, nor did he resent the 
equality on which she placed their families. It was 
refreshing to him to meet with any one by whom his 
rank was ignored ; it was like a draught of spring 
water to one satiated by a surfeit of sweet champagne. 
But he saw that his pleasure or displeasure was a 
thing quite indifferent to her. 

When he passed out into the narrow, vaulted 
stone passage, the door of the old man’s study was 
closed. He did not endeavour to go in again, 
but went out into the open air where the sunlight 
fell through the grey traceries of the olive leaves and 
the doves were cooing in the great gnarled branches 
above. 

c You who have so much/ said the voice of his 
conscience to him, c cannot you leave this wild dove 
alone on her olive branch ? ’ 

But his heart, rebellious, answered : ‘ What have 
I ? Nothing; since I have nothing that contents me/ 


XVI 


HELIANTHUS 


269 


Ilia Illyris was the only woman on earth who 
could, in all sincerity and unconsciousness, have 
treated his rank as a thing indifferent to her. Her 
complete isolation from the world, and ignorance of 
its values and its habits; the disdain which she 
inherited for all the distinctions of position, and all 
the. simulacrum of royalty and power, made her 
omission of all the deference which others showed 
him, and the simplicity and familiarity of her inter- 
course with him, entirely natural and indeed inevi- 
table. It was as welcome to him as was to the weary 
wayfarer a draught of the clear spring water which 
flowered under the parsley and cresses of the rivulets 
of Mount Atys. 

Who could surpass the Illyris in their traditions ? 
Her pride was not in herself, but in those whose 
name she bore. 

As the companionship of Ednor was agreeable 
to Othyris as the breeze and smell of the sea are 
agreeable after hours spent in a crowded ball-room, 
so the little house of Illyris was a refuge to him from 
the Court and from the world, as a shady moss- 
grown nook in a woodland is to the harried deer. 

Ilia Illyris showed Othyris no disrespect, but she 
showed him no deference. Usually, wherever he 
appeared, women were in a flutter of expectation and 
displayed their charms as pedlars their wares. Her 
stillness, her calmness, the unvarying simplicity of 
her manner, and the occasional severity of her words, 
were a fascination to him strong in proportion to its 
novelty. She might have been a woman of the 
Homeric age. He had asked for her friendship at 
first sight; but when six months had passed he 
could not flatter himself that he had obtained it. 


270 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


Had he deserved it? He could not, to be sincere 
with himself, think so. Weighed by her standards, 
his life seemed to him frivolous, unproductive, selfish. 
Besides, he saw that he was to her always the de- 
scendant of the man who had betrayed and imprisoned 
Platon Illyris. 

To the temper of Ilia Illyris, treachery was the 
one unpardonable sin ; tainting for centuries, genera- 
tion after generation, unpardonable, unforgettable, 
eldest-born of hell, — of that hell which men have 
created for themselves. The crime of the Gunderode 
seemed to her an offence against the nation still 
more than against her race. Racial feud is dark and 
strong and deathless in the national character of this 
country, still barbaric in so much, and classic in so 
much, and mingled with so many alien elements 
brought into it by its conquered, and by its con- 
querors ; by those whom it had dragged at the 
chariot wheels of its triumphs, and by those who 
had overrun its soil and destroyed its civilisation. 

But what wounded and stung Othyris was that 
he made no way with her as a man ; as a prince he 
was quite willing to abdicate all rights of rank, he 
was satisfied to come there as any scholar might have 
gone to any teacher; but he was mortified to find 
that his own individuality, when it had laid aside all 
adventitious claims of place or privilege, should seem 
so little welcome to her. She was more cordial to 
Janos, the peasant who dwelt in a hut near them and 
did such rough work as the woman Ma'ia could 
not do indoors and out ; a shaggy, bearded figure 
like a faun, clothed in goatskin in winter and in 
summer almost nude. 

c She has the name of Rhea Silvia,’ he thought. 


XVI 


HELIANTHUS 


271 


She should bear a Romulus in her womb, who would 
be eponymous to an eternal city/ 

Her entire unlikeness to all others of her sex 
fascinated Othyris ; he could no more have spoken 
to her lightly than he could have struck the statue 
of Astarte in the face. Before her, he was subdued 
into submission, and took pleasure in the mysterious 
and novel timidity he felt ; but away from her he 
felt a restless vexation at his own subjection and 
rage. 

£ I am like some awkward, blushing Cymon, of the 
cattle-stall and the ploughshare ! ’ he thought with 
anger. She was a beautiful woman, but she might 
have been made, he thought, of ivory, or marble, or 
silver, like that wondrous statue of Astarte which had 
once been throned upon these hills, and of which the 
traditions remained in the pages of Halicarnassus. 
She seemed absolutely detached from modern life, 
wholly insensible to the influence of others, entirely 
callous also to the pain or the offence her words 
might cause. . Yet he could not feel that such speech 
was rudeness in her, or was intended to wound ; it 
was the direct and simple expression of her thoughts, 
and what she had said was true. Any denial of its 
truth would have died on his lips if he had tried to 
utter it. 

Again and again Othyris had said to himself : ‘ Is 
this the only result of that mighty and glorious epos 
— that we are here ? ’ What greater bathos could 
there be than this, that the resurrection of a nation, 
the ideals of its youth, the sacrifices of its women, the 
high and burning hopes of its patriots, should have 
had as their only result the paltry, fulsome, and useless 
ceremonials of a royal Court, the corruptions and con- 


27 2 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


ventionalities of a modern government, the tyrannies 
of taxation and contravention, the endless waste of an 
insatiable exchequer, the slavery of military conscrip- 
tion, the comedy and the formulas of parliaments ? 

The thunders had rolled along the mountains, the 
volcanic flames had leaped, the winds of the storms 
had swept through the air, the glorious sunrise had 
shone forth from the darkness, and the day had 
dawned — and for what issue? Oh ridiculus mus ? 
Ilia and Illy ris could not feel the paltriness of the 
issue in contrast to the splendour of the effort more 
acutely than he himself felt it. 

c It is not wholly our fault/ he said with hesita- 
tion to Ilia one day. c Do not think that I say so 
because I am a son of the King. Our race is akin 
to Helianthus, not in harmony with its past or its 
present. But were we other than we are, I doubt if 
we could alter the national character or the corrup- 
tion which has become the marrow of the bones of 
the people. Helianthus has been too long soaked in 
the poisonous vapours of tyranny, and bribery, and 
untruth and all their congeners, to wash in a Jordan 
of political morality and become clean. The disease 
has entered the innermost cells of the people’s flesh 
and of their brain ; the greatest ruler, the holiest 
saint, could do nothing to cut it out ; it will live on 
them as long as the nation lives. Can you ever 
obtain a plain answer to a direct question ? Can any 
one buy the commonest thing without an effort 
being made to cheat in the matter of its price ? Do 
you know anything of the conduct of elections, 
municipal, political, or ecclesiastical ? Is it possible 
for a man or a woman to enter any career, or to 
advance in any, without underhand methods and dis- 


XVI 


HELIANTHUS 


2 73 


honest craft ? Can a mere teacher in a village school 
be given the place without pressure and influence 
indirect and often injurious to the public interests? 
You here in your woodland solitude know and see 
nothing of the sea of mud in which the Helianthine 
public life has its being. Were my father Solomon 
or Antoninus he could do little or nothing. Were 
we all demi-gods or angels we could not strive 
against the national debauchery of the national 
conscience/ 

Ilia was silent ; she could not contradict, she 
would not assent ; but she realised that beyond the 
trees and rocks and torrents of her dwelling-place 
there were many things of which she had no know- 
ledge. Even the great and virile intellect of her 
only relative was dimmed by the passage of many 
years and the effect of long isolation, so that perhaps 
it knew little of that modern life with which he had 
never any contact. Janos and his fellows were 
much what their forefathers had been two thousand 
years before, and even their religion, though it bore 
another name, was identical in superstition and in 
symbol with that of the days of Pan. 

Ilia lived out of the world of men; she realised 
that she might be unable to judge it. 


T 


CHAPTER XVII 


The Helianthine fleet was anchored in the bay, 
that beautiful and romantic Bay of Helios which has 
been renowned through a score of centuries for the 
many sea-fights which have dyed its blue waters red 
with carnage ever since the days when the temples 
of Poseidon, newly built with freshly-quarried 
marbles, had crowned the semicircle of its moun- 
tainous coast. King John kept his navy, as all 
sovereigns keep theirs, nowadays, as a visiting-card 
to be left on neighbours, near or far, and sent about 
the seas of the world to produce amity, or threaten 
enmity, as might happen to be necessary. It is an 
expensive visiting-card, but as the nation pays the 
price of it, a sovereign and a government need not 
concern themselves about its cost. It is also some- 
times a cumbrous card, when it happens now and 
then that its errand is repented of when it has already 
had time to weigh anchors and get up steam. But 
as an innocuous way of making yourself disagreeable 
to some, or amiable to others, without binding your- 
self by treaties, it has no equal ; and if the cost of 
sending it about is vast, well — it is the taxpayer 
who suffers, and he is scarcely aware of what he pays, 
since it is all comprised in the Naval Estimates, with 
which the taxpayer does not often occupy himself, 
considering them the affair of experts. 


CHAP. XVII 


HELIANTHUS 


275 


The festive display of the Helianthine fleet closely 
resembled a hostile demonstration, as its ironclads 
lay on the dancing waters of a glad azure sea. The 
huge, ugly metal hulls were in line, one after another, 
as near shore as they could dare to approach ; and 
their gigantic guns bellowed defiance across the bay, 
as though the whole of mankind were their foes. 

Othyris, as he looked at these great grey monsters, 
lying motionless on the water, their ugliness only 
accentuated by the festoons of coloured bunting hung 
from mast and funnel, seemed to see as in a vision 
the first naval war of the future in that lovely bay of 
Helios : the new steel and aluminium war-ships heel- 
ing over, exploding, sinking, going down in whirl- 
pools of blood-stained water, churning the bodies of 
dead and dying men in the agitated foam, whilst 
some other victorious fleet rode triumphant on the 
waves of the Mare Magnum, firing in derisive exul- 
tation over the abyss in which his country’s honour 
had perished ! 

But he alone was a prey to such melancholy fore- 
bodings ; every one else was rejoicing and proud, 
for at this moment the sea-monsters were on a peace- 
ful errand bent. The fleet was nominally commanded 
by the young Duke of Esthonia, virtually by an old 
sea-dog admiral ; and the walls of the city, the beach, 
the bastions, the docks, the piers, the olive-clothed 
hills, were all crowded with an interested and admir- 
ing crowd, assembled to wish the squadron good- 
speed on its cruise. It was going this time to visit 
the adjacent country of Gallia, by way of proving 
the truth of the adage that the love of one neighbour 
often springs from the hatred of another; for the 
diplomacy of Helianthus at that moment was to 


276 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


ascertain her value to others without ticketing her- 
self with any definite price, and to utilise the good- 
will of her allies in order to scare into dumbness and 
numbness those who were always ready to dismember 
her. For Helianthus to be friendly in a sweet and 
cordial way to Gallia, was to make the price of 
Helianthus go up to Gallia’s foes. 

The Finance Minister and the Chambers of the 
Empire of the Guthones had at the beginning of 
the session put a tax upon Helianthine honey, which 
was the best in the world, and upon the fleece of the 
Helianthine flocks, which were equally famous — 
both flocks and bees were nourished on the thyme- 
covered hills of which classic poets had sung ; and 
the imposition of two such duties seemed but a poor 
return for the constant and costly state of prepared 
readiness for war in which the Helianthine people 
had been kept by their rulers to please the Emperor 
Julius. It was thought well to remind these Gu- 
thonic ingrates that neither Helianthus nor Gallia 
was a quantity that could with impunity be neglected 
in the calculations of the Julian diplomacy ; that, 
after all, Gallia and Helianthus were kindred, so 
said philologists, if like other kith and kin they had 
often quarrelled and fought. 

So the great ships lay like resting whales on the 
heaving swell of the Mare Magnum, ready to get 
under weigh; whilst Gallia, who did not mistake 
the motives for which she was to be visited, was busy 
embellishing one of her chief ports, painting her 
lamp-posts, cleaning her revolving lights, hanging 
up the colours of Helianthus with her own, burnish- 
ing her ordnance, holystoning her decks, getting 
ready reviews, illuminations, and banquets, and 


XVII 


HELIANTHUS 


277 


preparing to do the honours graciously, though 
keeping her weather-eye open. The naval pageant, 
the banquets, the presents, would cost her a vast 
deal of money ; but in republics as in monarchies. 
Chambers vote and Ministers spend happily and 
easily moneys which are not their own. The country 
of Gallia was a republic; and a republic on the 
frontier of a monarchy is like a factory of dynamite 
established close to the house of a gentleman who is 
afraid of a popgun. It is true that this republic was 
almost indistinguishable from a monarchy, having a 
huge standing army, a very expensive fleet, a most 
corrupt plutocracy, a Press entirely owned by finan- 
ciers, a number of worrying, fidgeting, and irritating 
by-laws, a most oppressive taxation, and everything 
else as like a monarchy as could be. 

Still a republic it was ; and, although its chief 
magistrate was a respectable manufacturer of woollen 
stuffs, who did his best to look as like a king as he 
could by means of stars and crosses on his chest, 
outriders before his carriage, bloody battues in his 
parks, public appearances in opera-boxes and at 
race meetings, and absolute inaccessibility to any 
plebeian, still, a king he was not; and therefore, 
to a king, he was an uncomfortable neighbour, and 
the republic over which he presided was a painfully 
unknown quantity — an x which disturbed all the 
calculations of hereditary potentates, whether consti- 
tutional or absolute, whether sprung up like mush- 
rooms from the germs on battlefields, or embedded 
like fossils in the sandstone of ages. All the emper- 
ors and kings caressed the excellent wool-merchant, 
treated him as if he were one of themselves, and to 
their astonishment found him a very good shot. But 


2jS 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


they were always exceedingly nervous about him, and 
thought him a terrible example to the wool-merchants 
of their own dominions. The Powers could have 
paired themselves off, whether for dance or duel, 
quite comfortably if Gallia and her wool-merchant 
had not existed ; but Gallia was always there, to give 
herself airs as the terra incommoda , or to offer herself 
in alliance, no one of them was ever sure where or 
to whom. 

The sovereign of Helianthus, like all his brothers 
in the purple, was always convinced that Gallia 
was conspiring against himself. She was not, 
because she was chiefly governed by her trading and 
speculating classes, who loved money and hated con- 
spiracies. But this King John did not believe was any 
security against her restless passions and her ambi- 
tious instincts, which even the great syndicates might 
any day be unable to control. Gallia was a blood- 
mare who might take her head and bolt at any 
moment, without warning, and carry her respectable 
wool-merchant to an Armageddon, as helpless as was 
ever John Gilpin. 

Therefore, since such was the custom of his 
brother-potentates, he sent the finest vessels of his 
navy to pay a visit to the southern ports of Gallia, 
and his favourite son to hobnob amicably with the 
excellent wool-stapler, whilst Helianthine and Gallian 
blue-jackets would get drunk together in the streets 
in fraternal affection — affection which would not pre- 
vent their blowing each other into shreds the very 
next day if they should be so ordered to do by their 
respective rulers. For sailors, like soldiers, have no 
politics. 

The great vessels were weighing anchor and 


XVII 


HELIANTHUS 


279 


departing on their mission of fraternal love and 
enormous expenditure; Othyris and Gavroche re- 
turned to the shore in a long-boat rowed by 
sailors. 7 

c What good do you suppose this will do ? ’ said 
Othyris to Tyras, who, like himself, had been com- 
pelled by the etiquette of his family to bid Esthonia 
adieu and bon voyage on the deck of the great flag- 
ship, the Polyphemus. 

Gavroche, who had painfully dragged his lazy 
length up and down the companion-way, gave his 
little hollow laugh, which had the sound of a tubercu- 
lous cough joined to a Mephistophelean chuckle. 

c It will benefit our brother’s babies : the wool- 
stapler will send them cartloads of toys and bonbons. 
I do not see any other particular object in the expedi- 
tion/ 

( It will cost as much as would feed the eastern 
provinces for three months/ 

c The eastern provinces do not enter into the 
haute politique of our father/ 

c Their lads are undersized/ said Othyris bitterly. 
c They count little in the drill-sergeants’ eyes.’ 

The eastern provinces were the crippled children 
of Helianthus. They were in large districts mere 
sandy wastes, almost oriental in their barrenness ; 
dry, searching winds swept them in spring, and their 
water-sources dried up by Pentecost ; whilst in winter, 
oftentimes, their streams overflowed vast districts, 
and their tilled lands were turned into stagnant lakes. 
Ruins of aqueducts and reservoirs showed what 
colossal, and doubtless efficient, works had existed to 
rectify the faults and abuses of nature in remote 
times, of which the very dates were forgotten. But, 


28 o 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


now, there was no attempt made on the part of the 
State to aid a sickly and helpless peasantry in its con- 
test with overwhelming forces, and the east was the 
spavined mare in the stable of John of Gunderode. 
Its districts knew no royal smile, they received no 
Ministerial visits ; they were seldom spoken of in 
the Chambers, and never provided for in any Budget. 
The tax-collector remembered them : no one else, 
except the military authorities, who took away a 
certain percentage of their lean and tired youngsters, 
who were scarcely good enough for the cannon’s 
maw. 

As the long-boat bearing Othyris and Gavroche 
sped across the stretch of calm blue water, freshened 
by a light southerly breeze, the range of the Mount 
Atys peaks and crags faced them, with the noon- 
day sun illumining the snow which lingered on the 
summits. As the distance narrowed between them 
and the land, Othyris could distinguish the lines of 
the Helichrysum hills, and through his glass saw the 
olive woods of their lower slopes, and the whiteness 
of the broad, smooth, sandy beach below. He 
could even see the threads of the many water-courses ; 
the gleam of the marble strata ; the warm hues of 
the porphyry cliffs; and discerned even a speck 
which he thought was the dwelling-house of Illyris. 

How willingly would he have lived there himself; 
the world forgetting, by the world forgot ! 

Happy were those who dwelt in such seclusion ! 

c What do you see over there ? ’ said Gavroche, 
raising his own glass in curiosity. 

‘ I see Mount Atys/ said Othyris tranquilly. 
‘ Look ! — that peak with the snow still on it and the 
clouds upon its side.’ 


XVII 


helianthus 


281 

Gavmche yawned, seeing nothing of interest. 

to on a ^"‘cipahty is seI J in g the Helichrysum hills 

an Acetylene Company, he said, with relish. ‘ I 
can pnt you on the thing, if you like/ 

f ^ eit her acetylene nor companies attract me.’ 
i ou are not of your time/ 

‘ N °, I am not. Is it true that they dare to dream 
of touching these hills ? * 

‘Certainly. It is an admirable speculation. It 

ShS v'Iic, p t " p ' :^hap, {ony - h h ‘ 

.h»i&a n n dS k Jr ar '“ Ga,h °" k 

‘ WeI1 > of course, those people have enterprise and 
money ; we have neither/ 

‘ We have .Mount Atys and its olive woods.’ 

Precisely ; and so, as we cannot ourselves utilise 
what we have got, we sell or lease it to those who 
can. 

‘For three thousand years no one has felt any 
necessity to touch those hills ; they belong to Isis 
and her son. 6 

‘ Who are they ? ’ said Tyras. ‘ It is going to be 
a big affair, he added. ‘ Our dear father will get a lot 
of script. The Syndicate has not got fairly into saddle 
yet ; but it will be a very big boom. The acetylene 
is only a beginning. There are no end of schemes — 
a funicular railway, a seaside suburb, a sanatorium, 
of course an observatory on the top, a lot of marble 
quarrying and timber felling; the thing is only in 
embryo at present, but His Majesty is very keen 
about it.’ 

Do you mean that the King favours any specula- 
tion so monstrous? ' 


282 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


‘ Lord, yes ! He approves and appreciates any- 
thing which puts money in his pocket . 1 

‘ But it will ruin the view of the bay ! 1 

‘ Do you think the King ever looks at the 
view ? 1 

‘ But Mount Atys is sacred ground 1 

‘To you and a few sentimentalists ; I believe 
Homer was the first of them ! 1 

‘They might as well sell Mount Sinai ! 1 

‘ They will, no doubt, if His Majesty ever is 
made King of Jerusalem. The Hotel of the Cross 
and the Pension Judas will be very fashionable ; 1 
and Gavroche laughed till he coughed. 

Othyris turned away in disgust. Was it possible 
this scheme existed ? He continued to gaze at the 
dazzling white of the lofty cone rising above the 
purple and grey mosses of the pine and olive woods, 
clothing the hills where Ilia Illyris dwelt, the hills of 
Isis and of Atys. 

The boat cut a swift path through the azure 
water. The fleet they had left was getting under 
weigh in the sparkling sunshine of the early morning, 
going on its errand of spinning an amity as brittle as 
spun glass, and weaving an alliance as friable as sugar. 
The war-ships were steaming towards the open sea, 
and the boat was rowed towards the harbour beneath 
the walls of the Soleia Palace, being received by the 
people with cheers. The many-coloured masses of 
the crowds on shore began to move, and unwind 
themselves, and little by little disappear, like 
bunches of flowers untied and thrown away into 
the dust. 

‘All those numbers packed together to see iron- 
clads weigh anchor ! 1 thought Othyris, ‘ and not a 


XVII 


HELIANTHUS 


283 


man amongst them, probably, to try and save Mount 
Atys. 

Without loss of time he instructed one of his 
most confidential servants to obtain all the informa- 
tion possible as to the projected purchase by the 
foreign Syndicate. 

If the Helichrysum hills were sold by the City 
Corporation, it was scarcely probable that the home 
of Illy ns would be spared. Where the lumbermen 
make a clearing in a wood, the nests of the birds fall 
and the form of the hare is trodden underfoot. He 
knew that the owner of Aquilegia was a trader in the 
maritime quarter of Helios, dealing with the fruit 
brigs of the coast a man who would be certain to 
part with the hillside property if a good offer were 
made to him. Othyris would before then have bought 
the little property, had he not feared the resentment 
of Illyris if he ever learned that he had become the 
tenant of a Gunderode. 

Aged and infirm as he was, Illyris would have 
found strength to leave any place embittered to him 
by an offered charity ; and even had he means to buy 
the property, he might be driven out by expropria- 
tion. He had paid the rent ever since his return from 
exile, and had almost forgotten that he was not the 
owner of the place. It had never occurred to him to 
buy it,, although Ilia, who desired to do so, put aside 
a certain proportion of the money made by her lace 
work, and saw the little pile of gold coins increase 
each year with pleasure. Every tree was dear to her, 
every little singing stream had its echo in her heart ; 
she knew where the earliest violets bloomed, where 
the hyacinths, like those of Wordsworth, seemed the 
blue of heaven fallen on earth, where the nightin- 


284 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


gales built their nests amongst the rotting leaves and 
drooping fritillaria, and where the striped toads made 
their summer homes under the ferns and took their 
winter sleep beneath the rocks. The love of those 
simple things is a passion with the soul which 
harbours it ; a passion which has the purity of all 
impersonal emotion. To those who feel it, the 
heart seems to grow into the soil like the roots of 
some sensitive plant. To such as these no change is 
needed other than the changes given by the seasons, 
by the daybreak, and the sunset. Othyris knew that 
this was the passion of Ilia Illyris for the solitude of 
Aquilegia. Driven out from it, she would be lost 
and unhappy as a doe driven from its forest. 

Willingly would Othyris have given Illyris any 
part of the beauty of Ainothrea or any other of his 
estates ; with gladness would he have offered him 
any choice of his lands and houses. But he dared 
not ; he knew that to do so would be both useless 
and offensive ; the old lion would couch on no alien 
lair. 

On the morrow his agent gave him full informa- 
tion as to the impending purchase. The sale by the 
Municipality was decided on, and only the assent of 
the King was necessary ; but there was no doubt 
of this, nor of its ratification by Parliament. The 
money for the payment was guaranteed by the great 
financier, Max Vreiheiden. Nothing could look 
more promising, at least on paper. 

‘ If there be no other means of saving the hills, I 
will bid over their heads/ Othyris said to himself. 

So long as the contract with the Corporation was 
not signed, so long as the shares were not on the 
market, he thought it might be possible to prevent 


XVII 


HELIANTHUS 


285 


the barter of this portion of the Helianthine coast 
to toreign speculators. 

PIis agents and his advisers were not of his 
opinion ; the King, the Financier, and the Munici- 
pality offered to their eyes an invincible trio, to sav 
" ot k h ,! ng ° f f he Ministers of the Treasury and of 
.Public Works, who were greatly in favour of the 
project. Othyris listened to their arguments, but 
was not greatly impressed by them. It seemed to 
him that to save the glory of Mount Atys and its 
sea-washed slopes from defilement, was an act which 
would be both patriotic and aesthetic — a thing to be 
done, for the sake of the country and the city, even 
were there no private interests involved. 

He had little knowledge of such speculations, of 
how to combat and to defeat them ; but experience 
had already shown him more than once that most 
questions resolve themselves into a matter of money, 
and that the longest purse is the strongest combatant 

It was necessary to act at once and as privately as 
possible, for if his father intervened with a formal 
veto in protection of the foreign speculators, it 
would be difficult for him as a prince of the blood to 
pass over such a declaration of the royal will. He 
selected the most competent of his financial adminis- 
trators, and set them to work to study and con- 
travene the projects of the foreign Company and the 
intentions of the men most prominent in the matter. 
He was well served at all times, for he was a generous 
and just master ; the secret was well-kept and the 
counterplans were well-laid. The amount required 
to oust the foreigners, and keep Yreiheiden neutral, 
was very large ; but not larger than he could afford, 
for the wealth he had inherited from Basil was very 


a86 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. XVII 


great. Rumours that he was interfering to prevent 
the sale of that part of the coast were current, but 
they were vague ; the City of Helios was indifferent 
who bought, so long as a buyer there was. 

The chief danger of serious opposition lay with 
the King. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


Some weeks later, as Othyris drew near the house of 
Platon Illyris in the warm afternoon, to his surprise 
and pleasure he saw Ilia come over the rough grass 
between the rose-bushes to meet him. She had 
never done so before. She seemed in haste, and her 
eyes looked wet with unfallen tears. 

c Oh, sir ! she cried to him as she approached. 
‘Will you not help us? Poor Janos is in great 
affliction. The guards have taken his son Philemon 
to prison for having sung the Hymn of Eos ! ’ 

The. song was the national hymn of Helianthus ; 
an ancient chant called by scholars the Hymn of 
Eos, and by the populace the Song of Sunrise. 
Its origin was lost in the mist of ages, but its 
memory was green in the hearts of the people. 
Under all foreign tyrannies it had been forbidden, 
but whenever freedom was regained its melody 
returned. It was to the sound of the Hymn of Eos 
that the War of Independence had been fought by 
the soldiers of Illyris, and the foreigner driven down 
into the sea and over the mountains. The grand old 
battle-song thrilled through the veins of the most 
sluggish and timid Helianthine. Theodoric owed 
respect to it, and respected it ; his son tolerated it ; 

287 


288 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


his grandson hated it, and persecuted it. He heard 
in it only the roar of revolution. 

To the present King this national song was so 
odious, that if, on driving through one of the populous 
quarters, he heard the lilt of it from some unknown 
singer, working at leather, or deal, or cloth, or 
sewing-machine, within some unseen attic or cellar, 
his comfort for the day was gone, and the head of 
the secret police had a severe worrying. It was in 
deference to this antipathy on his part that the two 
Legislative Houses had, in the second year of his 
reign, passed a law decreeing the singing of the 
patriotic ode illegal ; a misdemeanour punishable by 
imprisonment varying from two days to a twelve- 
month. 

Now, as it appears to be an axiom in political 
life that, although governments may change, the 
laws made by them must not do so, the fine melody 
of the Hymn of Eos remained a forbidden thing 
in the Code with fines proportionate in degree. The 
law had not succeeded in suppressing the chant ; but 
it had caused much widespread misery, as the offence 
was almost always only committed by young and 
poor men, students, operatives, labourers, peasants, 
and even school children, so that many through this 
law began their lives in the dock and the prison. 
Those who condemned the offenders told them 
that they had only their own wicked obstinacy to 
thank; that it was perfectly easy to abstain from 
singing a song; that to be forbidden to sing it 
involved no hardship ; that there were fifty thousand 
other songs on which no ban was laid. But this 
kind of argument has never availed yet to move 
human nature; and it did not avail in Helianthus. 


XVIII 


HELIANTHUS 


289 


There w as always some one chanting somewhere the 
forbidden hymn, in field, or vineyard, or sheep-fold 
m garret, or work-yard, or cobbler’s den ; always 
some one to be brought up for judgment. 

Whenever a Liberal Ministry came into office it 
was supposed by the populace ' that this law would 
be repealed. But it never was so. The royal in- 
fluence was too strong and the office-holders too 
timid ;. and the Press continued to record arrests for 
the heinous and grave offence, just as when the re- 
actionary party prevailed. He who makes the songs 
of a nation makes its history, it has been said ; but 
this song, having been often one of the makers of 
the history of a nation, was now considered but a 
gallows bird. The song, however, was in the hearts 
of the people, and rose often to their lips. No 
petitions were so often thrown into the carriage of 
Othyris, flung up to his balconies, or lifted to the 
level of his saddle, as those of parents, or sisters, or 
betrothed, of youngsters who had been condemned 
for this, offence. None caused him greater pain. 
His position debarred him from showing his sympa- 
thy. with those condemned, and power to abrogate 
their sentences he did not possess. When a pale 
and desperate woman tore her way through a throng 
and . clung frantically to his stirrup leather to plead 
to him for her boy, who had been arrested for shout- 
ing the revolutionary chorus as he had walked with 
some comrades through the vines in the moonlight, 
or had sat drinking a lemonade at a tavern door 
with some lads come out like himself from the hell 
of a furnace or of an engine-room, he could do noth- 
ing for her ; for what use were words ? The boys 
had broken the law. The law was unjust, idiotic, 
u 


290 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


senseless, cruel ; but it had become the law. He, 
the son of the Defender of the Law, could not take 
their part. 

£ Only for that ! * he said now to Ilia. £ Where 
was he ? ’ 

£ On the shore down yonder, gathering seaweed. 
He was singing the song as he worked, thinking no 
harm. He is only seventeen/ 

£ I am very sorry/ 

‘That is of little use, sir. Release him. He is 
so young, and the offence is surely a very little 
one/ 

£ Release him ? I ? Believe me, if I had any 
power, that song might be sung from end to end of 
the country/ 

c Some power you must have. With you as with 
the Popes it is only non possumus when you wish/ 

£ I have none, in the sense which you suppose. 
I cannot interfere in any matter lying within the 
jurisdiction of the law/ 

A look of incredulity and contempt passed over 
her face and wounded him, like spoken scorn from 
one esteemed. 

£ Sir, you know as well as I do that, indirectly, if 
not immediately, your family influences, however 
and wherever it chooses, the course of public justice/ 

A flush rose to his face of anger and mortifica- 
tion. 

c That is a very grave accusation/ he said. £ I 
think you do not realise how grave it is/ 

£ It is grave, no doubt. But if you care for truth 
you cannot deny it/ 

£ It is not truth. It is an exaggeration, even if it 
be not a libel. We cannot, and do not, touch the 


XVIII 


HELIANTHUS 


291 


course of civil law. The power of the King himself 
stops at the doors of the public tribunals/ 

c These are mere phrases/ she said with contemp- 
tuous indifference ; c you would not use them to my 
great-grandfather/ 

c He would not say to me what you say. Men 
keep within some measure of moderation in reproach 
and censure/ 

( I think he would certainly say to you that if you 
look into your conscience you will see there that it 
is not unjust/ 

‘It is exaggerated ; and as regards myself it is 
entirely untrue/ 

‘ That may be/ 

Her tone had a doubt in it, an unspoken incredu- 
lity, which wounded him. He could not say on his 
honour that the privileges of the Crown were never 
strained. There passed through his mind many 
memories which told his conscience that she was not 
altogether wrong ; memories of acts with which he 
had nothing to do, which he had possessed no more 
power to prevent than to prevent the revolving of 
the moons of Saturn, but by which members of his 
family had turned aside the course of public equity 
as an engineer turns aside the course of a stream. 
The engineer sits unseen in his office, and has no 
weapon but his pen and his mathematical instru- 
ments ; but it is by him, through him, that the 
merry babbling of the water through the flags and 
cresses is arrested, and the birds on its banks left 
athirst. 

He remembered Corvus, who had been saved 
again and again from certain exposure and probable 
condemnation in the tribunals, because he had been 


292 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


in his sovereign’s sight a heaven-born Minister, a 
kneeling lion holding up on mighty shoulders the 
throne and all its pomp and prestige. He remem- 
bered a colleague of Corvus, Noevius, who had 
died in office, heavy with years and honours and 
riches, though again and again the public voice and 
the public prints had proved against him the appro- 
priation of funds, the sale of places and contracts, 
the most unblushing nepotism and venality in pat- 
ronage, the selection for high emprises of favoured 
incapables. 

He remembered the Baron Anthemis, an Aide-de- 
Camp of the Crown Prince, who had killed with a 
sabre-thrust a citizen who had jostled him on the 
pavement of a narrow street in Helios, and who had 
been found guiltless by the courts, both civil and 
military, and was still taking his ease on the boule- 
vards of the city. He remembered the Countess 
Corianthus, who had been guilty of forgery to the 
amount of several millions of francs, but who was a 
Lady of the Bedchamber to Princess Gertrude, and 
was never brought to justice, but merely endured 
an agreeable exile, her husband being sent on a 
diplomatic mission to a great empire, where she 
shone as the most brilliant of ambassadresses. He 
remembered another great lady, the Duchess Daubrio, 
who, when her husband had been Minister of War, 
had stolen and sold to a foreign Power plans of 
mobilisation and fortification — a despicable betrayal 
for which she had never been troubled in any way. 
He remembered Colonel Vislauer, commanding a 
regiment of Foot Guards, who had caused three of 
his men, for a trifling offence against discipline, to 
be stripped and stretched face downward on the 


XVIII 


HELIANTHUS 


293 


stones of the barrack-yard whilst he kicked them in 
the ribs with his jack-boots. No action of any 
kind was ever taken against Colonel Vislauer for this 
brutal crime, because he was an officer highly esteemed 
by the King, and admired by the Emperor Julius. 

Othyris was powerless to alter these abuses. 
There would be always ‘lictors to clear the market- 
place and put their necks beneath the curule chair/ 
as in the Claudian days. These remembrances, and 
others like them, thronged on his mind under the 
sting of her words. 

Direct, avowed, conspicuous interference there was 
none; but indirect influence there was continually, 
acting like that atmospheric pressure which is at once 
invisible and irresistible. 

She saw that he was humiliated and distressed, but 
she was not moved to pity. 

c Why/ she said, ‘ why, sir, should it be only the 
worthless and the exalted who are so protected ? 
Why will you not help Philemon ? ’ 

c I have told you — I have no power/ said Othyris 
with anger and impatience of her unkindness. 
c Your poor lad Philemon is not a dishonest Minister, 
or a military favourite, or a Court beauty, that he 
should be saved from an unpleasant punishment, 
nor am I one of those who can stop the law in its 
strides. Were it known that I felt any interest in 
the son of Janos it would do him far more harm 
than good/ 

‘Why?’ she asked, incredulous. 
c Because I am a “ suspect ” myself/ said Othyris, 
with irritation. c Every action of mine is subject to 
suspicion. By my family I am considered a Philippe 
Egalite in embryo/ 


294 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


‘ Egalite lived and died basely/ 

‘ I do not think my life is base ; my death cer- 
tainly shall not be/ 

‘ You cannot tell/ 

‘ Oh, pardon me ; so much at least any human 
being may be sure of ; he cannot know what death 
he will meet, but he can know in what temper he 
will meet it/ 

‘Whilst you philosophise, Philemon, poor child, 
is in prison/ 

‘You are very harsh to me/ 

‘ Why should I not be ? You have everything the 
world can give. You do not need any indulgence/ 

‘Do you think material possessions can compensate 
for the unrest of the mind, for the captivity of the 
spirit ? ’ 

‘ I can understand that to some temperaments they 
do not compensate ; but your sorrows seem fictitious 
to me, beside the reality of the woes that I have 
seen/ 

At that moment the peasant Janos rushed through 
the olive trees, and fell at the feet of Othyris ; he 
was a rude, wild, hairy figure, with great black eyes, 
now burning with pain and wet with tears ; his breast 
was bare ; his skin was bronzed brown, his beard 
long and unkempt. 

‘ My lord, my lord ! * he cried. ‘ They say you 
are one of those who reign. Oh, hear, and be 
merciful, my lord ! They have taken my boy, my 
first-born son ; he was singing down on the shore, 
as he filled a creel with seaweed ; the song is for- 
bidden, they say — I do not know. How can singing 
a song be a crime ? They have taken him into the 
city, into their prison. I have been there ; they will 


XVIII 


HELIANTHUS 


295 


not open to me, nor let him out. You who are 
great, and full of power, make them open. Give 
me back my boy/ 

Othyris was profoundly affected. 
c Get up, good man/ he said with gentleness. c I 
am grieved ; but, alas ! I am as powerless as you 
are/ 

‘ Set him free ; set him free/ cried Janos, who did 
not rise, but kept his brown toil-worn hands clasped 
round the knees of the man whom he believed was 
omnipotent. ‘ He was sixteen last day of all the 
Saints. Only sixteen, my lord ! a little lad who 
should be at play, and he works like an ox at the 
mill, to aid me, and get bread for his brothers. Only 
singing a song ! — God in Heaven ! the same old song 
that was sung by the men who followed the Great 
Man when he drove the strangers into the sea/ 

His hands relaxed their hold, he rolled upon the 
turf in the hysterical anguish of the southern peasant, 
tearing madly at his matted auburn hair, shrieking 
like a butchered ram whose throat is gashed by the 
knife. 

c You might have spared me this/ said Othyris to 
Ilia Ulyris. c Believe me, I need no pressure/ 
c I did not know that he was near/ 

She bent over the writhing body of the peasant. 
c Janos, arise/ she said as she touched his shoulder. 
c You can hear me ? You hurt yourself and me, my 
friend. The Duke of Othyris is sorry for you and 
for the boy/ 

Janos was calmed by her touch and her voice, as 
an infuriated animal is touched by those of one whom 
he loves and is accustomed to obey. He did not 
rise from the ground, but he ceased to rave, and 


296 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


writhe, and tear his hair and beard ; he lay face 
downward on the grass, trembling and sobbing bit- 
terly. Othyris stood near him, moved to a great 
and painful pity. 

To those who are accustomed, by breeding and 
through pride, to restrain in themselves the outward 
expression of all emotion, a violent and ungoverned 
display of strong feeling always appears to the heart- 
less indecent, to the merciful most piteous. Unveiled 
emotion always appears an offence to those accus- 
tomed to the restraints of a polished society. 

‘I feel wholly with you, Janos,' he said. c Rise, 
my poor man, and take courage. If there be any 
way in which I can help you I will take it. Are you 
sure your son went quietly with the town guards ? 
If he struggled ’ 

‘ No doubt he struggled. No doubt he rebelled. 
He is a youth with a man’s heart,’ said Ilia Illyris 
with some disdain. c Do not even the timid fawn and 
sheep rebel, when they are being dragged to the 
shambles ? ’ 

Janos staggered up to his feet. 

‘Did he rebel? I know not, my lord. No one 
was there. As they passed through the city gate he 
saw Damon, the son of Orestes, who is a comrade of 
his, and he cried aloud to him of what had chanced. 
<c Tell father,” he cried, “ tell father they take me to 
prison for singing the Song of Sunrise,” and Damon, 
the son of Orestes, came up hither to me, fast as a 
dog may run, and he said : “ They are taking him 
down to the city prison. Philemon will not sleep at 
home to-night, nor many nights to come.” And 
that is all that Damon, the son of Orestes, knew, 
and all that I know.’ 


XVIII 


HELIANTHUS 


297 


Then he threw up his arms to heaven, and wailed 
aloud; a dark, wild, most sorrowful, most terrible 
figure, standing in the clear green sunlight beneath 
the trees. 

c I will do what I can/ said Othyris. 

Go, Janos, said Ilia. c You hear what hope is 
gi^en you. I will come and speak with your wife 
before the sun is down/ 

‘ Will he be back this night ? ’ said Janos, the 
great sobs breaking his words. 

l ^ ere * s k°P e of that, my poor friend/ said 
Othyris ‘ The law is quick to take, and very slow 
to loose. 

When when — ’ gasped Janos ; c when, oh my 
lord r 

f I cannot tell ; I can promise nothing. I possess 
no power. But what I can I will do. Go now. 
You will hear from me/ 

The accent of authority, which was natural to 
Othyris when wearied or opposed, asserted itself 
through the kindness and compassion of his tone. 
It cowed and silenced the peasant ; he ceased to im- 
portune, he tried to restrain his grief; he ceased to 
wail and scream ; with despair upon his face he slunk 
away between the great trunks of the olives ; he did 
not dare even to pray any more. 

‘ He is a poor rude creature, sir/ said Ilia. c He 
is not a courtier! ’ 

‘He is distraught/ said Othyris; ‘and you, lady, 
are unkind/ 

The colour rose into her cheeks. 

‘ I was wrong/ she said ; c I should have thanked 
you. You were good to him/ 

Othyris bowed to her, and took his leave in silence. 


298 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


He was wounded by what seemed to him her injus- 
tice and unkindness. 

Ilia remained out of doors by that old well where 
she had spoken with him ; she sat down upon its 
marble ledge, which was broad and solid as a bench 
and carved with the acanthus leaf so dear to classic 
stone-workers. She was vaguely startled by the in- 
fluence which she dimly perceived that she possessed 
over Othyris. Some slight comprehension of the 
intense restraint which he must put upon himself to 
submit to her disregard of all the formalities and 
deference to which he was by habit accustomed, and 
by his birth entitled, dawned on her ; and for the 
first time she asked herself why he did so. Was it 
not, she thought, because he was sincerely weary of 
the conventionalities and hypocrisies of etiquette ? 

This explanation seemed to her simple and natural ; 
and she could not, from her ignorance of the world, 
measure in any degree the vast power which she 
must exercise over him to make him subdued to 
such renunciation of his claims to respect, such sub- 
mission to her continual ironies and censure, her 
complete indifference to his rank. But for the first 
time, that morning, some perception of all which she 
ignored, and which he renounced, dawned on her ; 
and the dignity and forbearance of his attitude under 
the provocation which she perpetually gave, claimed 
her admiration and moved her to a certain penitence. 
Birth, and the whimsical caprices of men, gave him 
the authority and the rank he held ; it was the fault 
of the world, not of himself. 

She sat under the olives, whilst the swallows flew 
to and from their nests under the eaves of her house, 
and a greater sympathy stirred in her towards the 


XVIII 


HELIANTHUS 


299 


son of the King than she had ever felt before. He 
was to her only Elim of Gunderode, but to all the 
world he was one of the Princes of Helianthus, be- 
fore whose coming crowds acclaimed, and trumpets 
sounded, and sentinels saluted, and in whom all the 
servility of the human race recognised un grand de le 
terre . 

‘ Ilia ' ’ called the voice of Platon Illyris from the 
study window. 

She rose and went. 

.‘ So they have taken the son of Janos to their 
prison because he sang the Song of Eos ! ’ said Illyris 
as she entered. c Heavens and Earth ! But for that 
hymn what were the country to-day ? A geographical 
expression ! A loose shaft of arrows that any hand 
could break ! Ah, child, if you had heard the people 
sing that song in the days of my youth ! It roused 
them as one man from the mountains to the sea. 
We who were scholars called it the Hymn of Eos; 
but the people called it the Song of Sunrise. It is 
so old, so old, that mighty hymn. Men say it was 
written by Pindar. That is mere conjecture. But 
what is sure is that its strophes were sung when 
the armies of the Medes and Persians were driven 
out of Helianthus, and the tyranny of the Asiatics 
ended then and for ever/ 

The Song of Eos ! 

Across the long dark space of joyless years Illyris 
saw the rosy morns and golden eves of his early 
manhood, when he, and the brothers and friends of 
his heart, had gone through the seeding grass of 
summer, or along the edge of the blue sea, chanting 
its chorus in triumphant defiance. 

The Song of Eos ! 


300 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


H ow often had the grandeur of its strophe and 
antistrophe rolled like thunder above the ranks of 
his young soldiers, urging them on to combat and to 
victory as though the Divine Twins rode on their 
milk-white steeds and called to them aloud, as in the 
great strife of yore. 

And now the classic battle-chant was a forbidden 
thing, an offence, a misdemeanour, a breach of 
common law ! 

Platon Illyris struck his tremulous hand upon the 
wooden arm of his chair. God of Battles ! For 
what had they fought, he and his? For what had 
they died, all the brave and beautiful youths of the 
years of the liberation ? 

O cruel cynic that men call Fate ! O grinning 
satirist that men call Time. 

* If I had known, if I had foreseen this rule of the 
Gunderode,’ he muttered, ‘ I would have left the 
stranger in the land, I would have left the foreigner 
in her palaces, and the alien flag on her towers ; and 
I would have bought a sailing vessel and sailed far 
away from her shores, and left to their choice a 
bloodless and spineless people, who, having achieved 
freedom, knew not how to hold it in their nerveless 
hands ! * 

The land had been to him as a fair woman enslaved 
and fettered. He had given all his life to her service, 
and had set her free, and had put in her hands the 
golden fruit and flowers of liberty; and she, she had 
thrown down the fruit in the dust, and had stretched 
out her wrists to the fetters ! Wise in their genera- 
tion had been the men who had never fought, the 
men who had never dreamed, the men who never 
pitied, or strove, or desired ; but sat in their dens 


XVIII 


HELIANTHUS 


3 °! 


like the spiders, and spun their webs, and devoured 
their prey, and waxed fat, leaving others to toil and 
to suffer, and the great salt sea of human tears to 
roll on from pole to pole! 


CHAPTER XIX 

On leaving Aquilegia, Othyris took his way to 
the annex of the Soleia Palace, used as a pied a 
terre by Tyras, who happened at this time to be 
spending a few days in Helios. It was never 
for very long that Gavroche honoured Helios or 
Helianthus ; he was generally to be found in the 
pleasure places of other countries, where he felt 
freer, and was not worried by any obligations to 
conduct himself occasionally with decency. Othyris 
found him in his bath-room, having been groomed 
by his valet and wrapped in robes of silken stuffs, 
and left, by his command, to sleep an hour or two 
before being dressed for the evening. Without, it 
was still a light and lovely evening, with the rays of 
the sun still rising like an array of spears above 
the horizon of the sea. 

But in the rooms of Tyras all was shuttered and 
perfumed and hot. Tyras had never looked at a 
sunset in his life. He was lying on his back on a 
soft couch ; he was always tired ; he was a Hercules 
in his build, but he was an utter wreck in his con- 
stitution. At seven-and-twenty he was a ruin, 
wholly in body and partly in mind. 

Othyris looked at him with his usual contempt ; 

302 


CHAP. XIX 


HELIANTHUS 


3°3 


and the prostrate figure stretched itself with lazy 
ennui. 

He was not pleased to see his brother enter; 
but he had never dared to keep out Othyris, for 
whom he had the sullen respect and the unwilling 
submission of the debtor to the creditor. 

‘ What the devil can you want at this hour ? ’ he 
muttered, with the straw of a strong drink between 
his teeth. 

/ I do not come for pleasure, you may be sure/ 
said Othyris. 

Have any of them been to you ? ’ said Gavroche, 
meaning his creditors. 

‘No. You are not drunk, I think/ said Elim, 
‘ at least not so drunk as not to be able to under- 
stand. Sit up, and hear me.’ 

. ‘ I wiU h ear you/ said Tyras, ‘ but damn me if I 
will sit up. What is it you come to say ? ’ 

‘ Listen, and comprehend. You will see the 
Minister of Justice, Deliornis, at the Palace to- 
night. You must take him aside, and tell him 
that the youth whose name is written on this paper 
has been arrested and imprisoned for singing a for- 
bidden song ; that he must let out this lad by such 
means and on such counts as he may judge fittest; 
but that the boy is innocent and must be restored 
to his parents, who are poor peasants dwelling on 
Mount Atys, without being marked or injured for 
life by a penal sentence or by a longer imprisonment, 
or by any punishment of any kind. You hear? * 

‘You want chestnuts taken out of the fire. Why 
do you not speak to Rags yourself? ’ 

‘ I never speak to the man whom you call Rags ; 
and any interference of mine would only damage 


3 ° 4 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


this lad ; they would be sure he was an anarchist 
and an atheist if I tried to save him. You are 
orthodox and royalist ! Certainly your protection 
will be injurious to him in another way, but he is a 
peasant, not a citizen, and so that kind of indecent 
calumny will not hurt him much, as he will always 
remain in ignorance of it.’ 

c Deliornis is very rough on all the revolutionary 
scum ; he will be a mule to move/ 

c My dear Gavroche ! When a monarchical mule 
is touched by a prince’s whip he moves at once, 
obediently ; indeed, he can never trot fast enough ! 
Besides, the Minister can take his information, and 
satisfy his conservative conscience. This is what 
you have got to do ; and you are not to name me 
in the matter.’ 

Tyras raised his head from the cushions, and 
looked at his brother with glassy, insolent, mocking 
eyes in which there danced a hundred little devils of 
vile suspicions and lubricities which he did not dare 
embody in words. 

‘ There is the boy’s name,’ said Othyris, as he 
put a slip of paper on a marble table beside the bath. 
‘ Take it with you to the Palace, or you will forget 
the name. The boy was arrested on the seashore 
beneath Mount Atys yesterday, Thursday, in the 
forenoon. Put out of your head all impudent and 
unclean suppositions. There is no place for them 
in this case. The youth is a harmless and ignorant 
little peasant. What he sang was the Song of Eos. 
That song may be very abhorrent to Deliornis, but 
it is written in the hearts of the whole populace 
of this country.’ 

‘ And your motive ; what is it ? ’ 


XIX 


HELIANTHUS 


305 


c It is not one which you could understand. 
Abstract justice would be as unintelligible to you as 
is voluntary sobriety/ 

Gavroche laughed a little, lazily. He always 
appreciated his brother's epigrammatic phrases. 

‘ What will you give me ? ’ he asked. ‘ Every 
affair comes to that.' 

c When one negotiates with those who are pur- 
chasable, yes. I am quite prepared to pay you and 
to pay your politician. Every favour obtained from 
an incorruptible Minister must be paid twice over: 
to the intermediary, and to the incorruptible.' 

Tyras laughed again, relishing the reply. 

‘You amuse me! What will Deliornis want 
beyond the honour of conversing confidentially with 
me in the sight of society ? Nothing, I should think. 
It will give him such immense pleasure. I am a 
slightly damaged peach, perhaps, but I am a prize 
peach, and I am still in the basket.' 

‘ What will you want?' said Othyris. ‘Say at 
once. I must leave you in five minutes.' 

c Give me Coscyra.' 

‘ I admire your modesty.' 

Coscyra was one of the finest estates in the 
possession of Othyris. 

‘ Give me Coscyra,' repeated Gavroche. 

c No. No one of my estates ever goes out of 
my ownership.' 

c You think the people on them a charge 
a' ames ! ' 

‘ Never mind what I think. They do not change 
hands. What I will do if you get this poor lad's 
freedom is to have all the paper you have given to 
Reuben Muntze bought up by my agents and 


3°6 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


destroyed. Muntze is the most dangerous of all 
your Jews/ 

‘ But that will not give me any money ! 9 

‘ No, but it will save you a good deal. Have 
you ever calculated the interest you pay all these 
men ? * 

‘ No ; it runs on * 

f Precisely. It does run on ; and the longer it 
runs on the worse for you. Bankrupt princes, my 
dear Gavroche, have been seen in this world/ 

‘ Yes ; but they are always sure of a good dinner 
with American nouveaux riches ! * said Gavroche, 
with a chuckle. c If Uncle Basil had left me what 
he left you ’ 

c A score of Basils would not have saved you from 
yourself/ 

Gavroche, who was no fool, knew that this was 
true ; and for once he was silenced. 

‘Well/ said Othyris, c do you accept?* 

‘You will set me free of Muntze altogether ? * 

‘ I will set you free of all your existing obligations 
to him. I dare say you will try to make others to- 
morrow. But I shall hope to prevent that/ 

Tyras hesitated; he would have preferred money 
down ; but Muntze was the most intrusive, the 
most ill-bred, the most odious of all his creditors. 
He had got the money-lender made a baron, and 
decorated ; but Muntze was always importuning 
and never satisfied ; he was always wanting unattain- 
able things : election to patrician clubs inexorably 
shut in his face ; entrance to houses where the hall- 
porters would have closed the doors against him; 
presentations to men who would sooner have sat 
down to dinner with a sweep ; invitations to race- 


XIX 


HELIANTHUS 


3°7 


meetings, to yachting-matches, to the drawing-rooms 

0 g reat ladies, to the dressing-rooms of great 
actresses. For Muntze was ambitious of social suc- 
cess, and did not quite correctly estimate social require- 
ments ; was loud in his dress, profuse in his jewellery 
self-assertive in his manners, and had not the humility 
and amiability which alone can excuse the pretensions 
or the novus homo to be received in high places; he 
did not even know how to lose at cards to his social 
superiors with tact. There was no doubt, thought 

1 yras, he was the most painful kind of creditor under 
the sun. 


‘I accept,’ he said sullenly. ‘Will you put it 
in writing ? ’ r 

‘No, I will not,’ replied Othyris. ‘When the 
young man is given back to his parents, I will do 
what I have said. You know me/ 

‘ Au. revoir, done ; ce soir chez Papa’ said Tyras 
perceiving that he could make no better terms. 

His brother knew that he would do his best to 
get the release of Philemon from Deliornis, for 
Gavroche, when he had his own interests to serve, 
and his brain was clear of alcohol, was an exceedingly 
intelligent and acute negotiator. 6 

alone, he now finished his iced drink agree- 
ably to himself, and turned the matter with which 
he was entrusted over in his mind. Gavroche when 
he liked could be an enjoleur-, he had when he chose 
a fascination in his drowsy regard, and in the slight, 
mocking smile of his thin lips, which bewildered 
many, attracted many, and dominated not a few, 
though some, and those timid women and honest 
men, shrank from it. 

The generosity of Othyris did not cause him any 


3°S 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


surprise, because he was used to such liberality ; but 
he thought that his brother must set great store on 
this youth for some reason unrevealed. There were 
hundreds of men and boys arrested every year for 
singing that song. Why did one out of the many 
interest Elim so greatly? That, however, he re- 
flected, would not be difficult to discover, for here 
was the boy’s name, Philemon, son of Janos Odiskia, 
who was a labourer in the olive woods of Aquilegia, 
a district of the Helichrysum hills. Though Tyras 
habitually drenched his brains with brandy, he was 
shrewd, and did not make the mistake of judging 
others by himself. He did not suspect that anything 
disreputable was the cause of his brother’s action, 
but he reasoned that the motive must be strong, 
exceedingly strong. 

c 1 will get over Deliornis, and then I will find it 
all out,’ he said to himself. He liked finding out 
what was concealed, and was clever at it, when his 
indolence, and his caprice, and his inconstancy, did 
not make him weary of a chase before he had got 
fairly on the scent in it. The same thing never 
attracted or occupied him for long; not even his 
own interests. 

c You would have had more power than any of us 
if you had not burned up your brains with brandy 
and impaired your volition with morphine,’ Othyris 
had said to him one day. 

c The river would be dry land if it were not 
water,’ said Tyras. c Have you nothing more novel 
to say than that ? A patron once told me in Paris 
that all his workmen died before thirty-five of drink 
of some sort. Why should I be more virtuous than 
a man in a blouse ? ’ 


XIX 


HELIANTHUS 


309 

There are a great many reasons with which I 
will not trouble you, because they would not weigh 
with you/ 


c And there are a great many reasons with which 
they would trouble me, if I were not irreclaimable. 
The King sent me a tour in the northern provinces 
when you were in Asia — oh-he ! I promise you he 
won't send me on another.' 

He laughed his short, weak, sardonic laugh of 
which diseased lungs were the feeble bellows, but 
which had a faint, far-off echo of childish mirth in 
it which made his brother’s heart ache, recalling 
other days. 

Gavroche had not been mistaken when he had 
counted securely on the complacency and compliance 
of the Minister in such a small matter as the arrest 
of a poor peasant. Deliornis would have opened 
wide the door of the fullest penitentiary in Helianthus 
to enjoy that delightful quarter of an hour in which 
the Prince of Tyras sat beside him in a recess, put- 
ting his hand familiarly on his shoulder and saying, 
c Foyez done , mon cher: To be called ‘ mon cher ’ by 
a prince of the blood, Deliornis would cheerfully have 
passed a decree declaring that all prisons of every 
kind should be abolished ! Kantakuzene stiffened 
his back sometimes ; Deliornis never. The former 
had the irritating qualities of a man who has studied 
back history and his contemporaries ; the latter had 
that delightful inferiority which comes from the total 
absence of early education. Kantakuzene occasionally 
was overborne by his own intellect into showing that 
he did not greatly estimate that of royal personages ; 
Deliornis never showed this, because he never felt it, 
— never felt anything in the presence of his monarch 


3 l ° 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


except the humility and the timidity which the 
tradesman feels before a patrician customer. 

Deliornis attributed the worst motives possible to 
his prince’s interest in the young peasant, but that 
did not prevent him from obeying the wishes of 
Tyras. He would have trodden on all laws and 
all justice if any one of the royal family had desired 
it ; and he consented as readily to set the lad free 
without examination of the charge made against him, 
as he would have consented to put him in prison 
without any charge at all if invited to do so by the 
same personage. 

Of necessity, he said that the law must take its 
course ; that his personal interference with a question 
of the police was utterly out of the question ; that no 
personal pressure could ever be exercised, etc., etc.; 
and with equal discretion Gavroche assured him that 
he would never dream of his going out of the proper 
course of ministerial etiquette to oblige himself ; that 
all he asked was clemency for the offence, if offence 
there were. But each of them knew very well, when 
their conversation ended, that Philemon, son of Janos, 
would be outside the gates of the gaol on the morrow, 
simply because the Prince of Tyras wished it. c Au 
bon entendeur salut ! ’ 

That evening the fastidious people, who could not 
see in a rag-merchant a heaven-born statesman, ob- 
served with disapproval and curiosity that the Prince 
of Tyras, who was quite sober, looked like a gentle- 
man, and wore that air of amiable condescension which 
he could put on when he liked, conversed long and 
seriously with Deliornis in a flower-filled alcove of 
one of the least frequented of the Palace drawing- 
rooms. No one could hear what passed, but the long 


helianthus 


3 1 1 


conversation gave rise to many comments and con- 
jectures on the part of the guests of the Court. 

Un the morrow Othyris 
f Gavroche * : — 


fris received a note signed 


t was all a mistake of the Carabineers. The usual 
fault : too much zeal in the public service. So touching ! 
1 he youth., not later than to-morrow , will be restored to 
the bosom of his family, with compensation. Now rid 
me of Reuben . 

. GreatJ y to r chagrin of Baron Muntze all the 

S f ' S " a Tl u th u C PHnCe ° f , T y ras were withdrawn 
from his hold, the amounts for which they had been 

given being paid to him with full interest. A caution 
was at the same time conveyed to him that if he lent 
again to the Prince of Tyras he would be likely to 
get into trouble in high places. 

‘ me > 1 ought not to spy on Elim after that 1 ’ 

thought Gavroche, in an emotion of genuine gratitude 
to his brother ; and the mystery of his brother’s 
interest in the youth who had been arrested was 
left unpenetrated by him for the moment, through 
one of those intermittent impulses of honour which 
now and then illumined the sodden darkness of his 
soul. 


CHAPTER XX 

On the following day, towards sunset, the boy 
Philemon stood again on the mud floor of the little 
home so dear to him; he was embraced, kissed, wept 
over, received as one risen from the dead. 

What had happened to him ? He knew no more 
than a young dog why he had been seized and 
chained up, then unchained and let loose. 

‘ They took me,’ he said to his parents, when their 
clamours and caresses grew a little quieter. c They 
came down on the beach and said I was singing the 
song ; yes, I was singing the song as I raked up the 
weed. They used me roughly and swore at me. 
They tied my arms behind me. They took me down 
to a guard-house by the Gate of Olives ; and, when it 
was dark, to that gaol which stands by the church of 
Our Lady of Tears, the gaol, that is all black and 
dreadful, and they put me in a stone cell, and there 
was no light ; I was frightened. I screamed. Two 
guards came in and beat me, and they chained me 
to the floor. I had had nothing to eat. They 
brought me some water, but they held it in a pail to 
my mouth to drink, and most of it was spilled over. 
They left me some bread, but I could not eat. They 
left me alone a long, long time. They came in hours 
and hours after ; I suppose it was night ; it was all 

312 


CHAP. XX 


HELIANTHUS 


3 ! 3 


dark. They had lanterns. “ Ah, you are dainty, 
are you, gallows bird ? ” they said when they saw the 
bread uneaten; and they kicked and cuffed me. 
1 hen they went out and left me in the dark. I do 
not know how long it was before they came again. 
1 hey took me out in the morning light. There was 
bright full sun in the passages. My head swam. 
1 hey took me to a man sitting at a desk, all buttoned 
up, with epaulettes on his shoulders. He said to me, 
Y °u ma y go. It was a mistake.” And he wrote 
in a big book. “ Take him outside and let him go,” 
he said to the guards. “ Here, you boy, say nothing; 
say only it was a mistake. And he gave me three 
gold pieces. Here they are/ 

His mother and brothers and sisters crowded to 
look ; they had never seen gold. But his father 
said : — 

‘ You should not have taken them. They had 
beaten you. Why did you take their money ? Give 
them to me. I will ask the Great Man/ 

So he always called Platon Illyris. Philemon gave 
them. 6 

I took them because I was afraid. I shall always 
be afraid * ; 

His voice was very low, his eyes were haggard, 
his limbs trembled with fever. His youth had gone 
out of him ; it was unlikely that it would ever return. 
Beat a young dog brutally, he will never be the same 
dog again. 

Janos went up to the house of Illyris ; they already 
knew of the boy’s arrival. When he had told his 
son’s story, he showed the gold which he held in his 
hand. 

c Sir,’ he said to Illyris, c the Master of the gaol 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


3H 

gave Philemon these three pieces. Should he keep 
them ? * 

c No/ said Illyris. £ Give them to me.’ 

Janos gave them. 

£ Child, bring me the little coffer/ said Illyris. 

Ilia brought it ; a small and rusty box of iron, 
very strong, found many years before in the earth 
beneath the roots of an olive-tree blown down in a 
storm ; it was probably many centuries old. 

Illyris opened it, took out three pieces of the same 
value, and gave them to Janos, taking those of the 
gaol in their stead. 

Then at his table he wrote in his fine bold char- 
acters, a little tremulous from age : — 

c If these three gold pieces are intended as the measure 
of your equity they are too much : if they are intended 
as the measure of your iniquity they are too little / 

Then he signed his name, Platon Illyris, put the 
paper and the coins under cover, and sealed them. 

4 Send Mai'a with this to the gaol, and bid her see 
that they give it to the governor/ he said to Ilia. 
‘ Let her go the first thing in the morning/ 

‘ Is it the King’s son who has set Philemon free ? ’ 
asked Janos. 

‘ Ay, they can bind and loose/ said Illyris 
bitterly. 

c Should we not thank him, sir ? ’ Ilia said with 
hesitation as Janos went away. 

£ Thank whom ? ’ 

c The Duke of Othyris. It must be he who has 
caused the boy to be liberated.’ 

£ Doubtless. Princes always say they have no 


helianthus 


pleasured ^ *** b ' nd and ] ° 0se > as 1 said, at their 

‘ But at least when they act justly do they not 
deserve some gratitude like other men ? ’ 

‘Their debt to Helianthus is as wide and as deep 
as the sea ; if one of them pay a trifle back, by some 
e “' wl ? Ich costs hlm nothing, have the children 
ot Helianthus any right or call to be thankful? 

race^ ^ UnW ° rthy reasonin g a daughter of my 


‘ Might not Janos go and watch for the Prince at 
the gates ? ’ 

‘ Who would open the gates to Janos ? You are 
mad. 

c C ^^ e ^ eve those gates always stand open.’ 

"They may. There are guards behind them.’ 

. w hen Princes do well should they not meet 
with gratitude? Would you not write a word for 
Janos, sir ? ’ 

"I? Write to a Gunderbde ! You are mad, 
child. * 

c Will you allow me to write ? ’ 

I forbid you most absolutely.’ 

She did not disobey. But obedience was painful 
to her. It seemed to her that they must appear 
barbarians in the eyes of Othyris. Sleep did not 
come to her until a late hour of the night ; she was 
thinking what she could do to show that she was not 
insensible to the act of the King’s son. Before 
the sun was visible upon the horizon, and the mists 
were still heavy and cold on all the dark slopes of 
the mountain, she went into the woods and gathered 
the bells of the fritillaria and the cups of the narcissus 
poeticus which were at that season growing thickly 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


3 l6 


under the mosses in all the olive woods, and fringed 
them with some young sprays of olives, and tied 
them with a plaited band of grass. She gave them 
to the woman Maia to whom, overnight, had been 
given the sealed packet for the governor of the 
gaol. 

c When you are in the city/ she said to the woman, 
€ go first to the gaol and leave that packet as the 
Master told you to do. Then go to the house of the 
Duke of Othyris. It is in the Square of the Dioscuri. 
The gates always stand wide open. It has great 
groups of date palms before it. Watch until you see 
him come out of the courtyard, if you watch all day 
long. Then go to him, give him these wild flowers, 
and say, “ She with whom I live thanks you.” Only 
those words. No others.’ 

The woman repeated the words three times to 
make sure of her remembrance of them ; then went 
on her way through the trees. She was a grave, 
worn, strong woman ; she had seen many troubles 
in her life, and had neither curiosity nor garrulous- 
ness. Seven hours passed before she returned. 

Ilia went and sat down and waited for her, where 
the water tumbled down over the rocks and a turn 
in the hill-path showed the shining sea and the distant 
and glittering domes of the city. 

She was disturbed, and the natural repose of her 
temperament was broken by a vague anxiety and 
unrest. Perhaps she had done wrong ? she asked 
herself. 

The dark figure of Maia came in sight, black in 
the white light ; erect, although not young, she 
carried on her head a burden of useful necessary 
articles which she had bought in the city. 


XX 


HELIANTHUS 


3i7 


c You saw him ? * asked Ilia, as she rose and went 
to meet her messenger. 

c I saw him,’ the woman answered. 

‘ What passed ? ’ 

‘That which you commanded should pass. I 
waited long. The young man came out of his 
palace. I made a sign to him. He knew me. He 
beckoned me to him. I said to him, “ She whom I 
serve thanks you.” His face grew bright. He took 
the flowers, and he turned back and went within. 
He would have given me money, but I put it away. 
It was all done in a moment. There were many 
people staring, and the guards of the street looked 
angry/ 

‘ You did well/ said Ilia. ‘ Good Mai'a, go in and 
take your rest/ 

Ilia remained there alone, looking down through 
the radiance of the noonday light, outward to the sea 
with its wide semicircle of golden coast and purple 
mountain. 

‘ I must say what I have done/ she thought. 

There was no sound in the still noontide, except 
that of a woodpecker striking his beak on the trunk 
of an oak. The silence and the radiance of the early 
spring day were like a benediction. She rose with 
regret as the Ave Maria rang far down below, and 
she retraced her steps to the house. 

She entered the presence of Illyris. 

‘ Sir/ she said, ‘ you will be angered, but I sent 
word by a message, by Mai’a, that I thanked the son 
of the King for the freedom of Philemon/ 

The face of Illyris grew very dark, like a storm 
which lowers in the hills. 

‘ I have suffered many things,’ he said harshly ; 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


318 

c but never before in my long life have I been dis- 
obeyed.’ 

‘Never have I dared to disobey you before/ said 
Ilia ; ‘ but I could not let a Gunderode believe that 
the Illyris were ingrates. ’ 

‘ What matter what a Gunderode may think ! ’ 
said Illyris with scorn. ‘You did wrong. But you 
inherit my temper. I cannot blame you for your 
heritage.’ 

He looked at her with a keen and searching gaze. 

‘ This young man pleases you ? ’ he added with 
suspicion. 

‘ I am sorry for him, sir.’ 

‘ Wherefore ? ’ 

‘Because he is, by nature, just; and he is in a 
position wherein he cannot be just in action ; he 
strives to do what good he can, but he knows that 
the utmost he can do is but a drop of clear water in 
a sea of mud.’ 

‘ Whence got he his scruples ? ’ 

‘ I know not.’ 

‘Is not he the son of Gregory’s granddaughter by 
the grandson of Theodoric? What blood has he 
in his veins other than that of traitors to the people, 
traitors and tyrants ? I must be in my dotage indeed 
when my word ceases to be law in my own house ! ’ 

‘ I grieve to have offended you, sir ; but I could 
do no less.’ 

‘You did ill.’ 

She did not defend herself. She too thought she 
had done wrong in one sense, although right in 
another. 

Illyris was silent, his eyes resting on her. She 
was calm and grave, with no embarrassment under 


XX 


HELIANTHUS 


3 J 9 


his scrutiny. As was her habit, she had spoken in 
simple sincerity. r 

‘ Y ° u ma Y g° to your room,’ said Illyris. He 
turned to the table beside him, and wrote a few lines 

of Th S ^ C °” d S ° n ° f the Kin S> the great-grandson 


Young man , you have done a good action in restor- 
ing a child to his parents, and in saving an innocent 
prom the pollution of prisons. You mean well, and I 
have no doubt of your good faith, but do not come here 
any more. Between Gunderode and Illyris there is a 
gulf which can never be passed l 

Then he signed and sealed the letter, and on the 
following day he sent it down to the palace in the 
Square of the Dioscuri. 

Yo ^|' a he did not speak of it. It had never been 
his habit to confide in women or to consult with 
them. 

H e trusted their affections, but he never trusted 
their intelligence. 

F or the first time her future troubled him with a 
sad sense of his own impotence. From want he 
could secure her; absolute need she would never 
know ; but beyond this he could not ensure her peace 
or safety. She was alone ; and she was not of a 
temperament to make friendships easily or find in- 
terests in new spheres. She had too much of the 
granite and the steel of the Illyris in her. 

Illyris felt that he had failed in his duty in his 
neglect of her ; and yet what could he have done ? 
She had inherited his strength ; he could only leave 
her to herself. 


320 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c Will you live on here when I am dead, Ilia ? ’ 
he asked her. 

‘Yes/ she answered, ‘ always/ 

She did not say, as others would have done, c Do 
not speak of death/ because she knew that death 
stood beside his chair and beside his bed, and said, 
‘ I am near/ every hour of the day and night. 
Neither he nor she used empty conventional phrases. 

‘ But you may change your state/ he said to her, 
c you may marry/ 

‘That is not likely/ she answered. 
c Why ? You are young/ 

c It is not likely/ she repeated. Tt would not 
suit me, I think. I wed Aquilegia/ she added. 

‘ Aquilegia is neither yours nor mine/ 

‘ I put away little sums as I can, and I hope to 
save enough to buy it some day/ 

c That is well. May Pallas Athene watch over 
you ! You are wiser than most women/ 

The price of Aquilegia, the house, the fields, the 
olives and the poplars was small. It was but a hun- 
dred of the broad crowns of Helianthus ; those gold 
coins which had so deeply offended the national 
feeling of the people when they had been first issued 
bearing the arms and the effigy of Theodoric. 

c It is like him/ said Othyris to himself, when he 
read those lines from the hero of the War of Inde- 
pendence. 

He was not offended. He understood. He did 
not resent even the manner of address. He con- 
sidered that Platon Illyris had the right to say what- 
ever he chose to any Gunderode. He knew that it 
would be best that he should go there no more. But 


XX 


HELIANTHUS 


321 


he looked at a few wild wood-blossoms set in an old 
silver goblet on a table in his studio, and thought, 
Whatever betide I must go sometimes where those 
flowers grew.’ 

Not yet ; for he would seem to the peasants to go 
there to receive their guerdon of gratitude, and to 
Illyris would appear to go in contempt of the power 
of a man so old to enforce his will. 


CHAPTER XXI 

Othyris had been by sea to his estate of iEnothrea, 
and was returning thence on board his sailing-yacht, 
when a small boat with a lateen sail bore down 
towards the royal schooner, and a man within it held 
up one of his oars in a gesture of appeal. Othyris, 
standing on deck, saw the signal, and caused his 
yacht to slacken speed and await the little craft. 
The fisherman who alone occupied the boat came to 
the schooner’s side and held up a letter. 

c Take it and bring it hither/ commanded Othyris ; 
and when he received it he found it was a note in the 
cypher which Ednor used in writing to him. He 
had the boatmen dismissed with a handful of silver, 
and went down into his cabin to decipher the message, 
which was very brief. It told him that Platon Illyris 
had died on the previous day, and that Ednor was 
perforce leaving Helios to avoid arrest for an article 
in his journal on the life and death of the hero, for 
which his personal seizure was now ordered by the 
State. He had known that the yacht was expected 
to return that day, and had sent one of his fisher 
friends to watch for its appearance in the offing. 

Othyris read the message with emotion. The 
grave could not give more complete oblivion to that 
great life than men in old age had given to it; yet its 
322 


CHAP. XXI 


HELIANTHUS 


323 


end in such isolation, in such ingratitude, hurt him. 
His return to the city was made as rapidly as was 
possible ; but when he reached the harbour of the 
Soleia it was noon on the following day, and the 
journal conducted by Ednor had taken the tidings of 
the death of Illyris amongst the populace ; the news- 
papers of the noble and commercial classes did not 
vouchsafe a line to his memory, nor even announce 
his decease. It was through him that they were 
living there in peace without a foreign occupation to 
harass and despoil them, but it had long ago been de- 
cided for them that all their gratitude was due alone 
to the now reigning House of Gunderode. 

When Othyris landed he drove rapidly to his palace, 
changed his yachting clothes for those of mourning, 
and entered a closed carriage, of which he drew down 
the blinds. He took no one of his gentlemen with 
him. The horses were driven by his order towards 
Aquilegia. He had no clear plan or definite intention 
in his mind ; his impulse was to go to Ilia ; she was 
desolate indeed; probably, he thought, she would not 
accept any protection or counsel from him, but he 
would at least offer them. He passed unnoticed 
through the city ; his carriage was undistinguishable 
from any other gentleman’s brougham, and he saw 
no signs of any especial movement in the streets. 
The dead hero had belonged to an almost forgotten 
past. The memory of a populace is evanescent as 
the dew of the daybreak. But as he drew near the 
poor quarters which led towards the Gate of Olives, 
these narrow, ancient thoroughfares seemed to be 
unusually hushed whilstunusually thronged by people. 
The doors and windows of the old, lofty, lowering 
stone houses were for the most part closed, and 


3 2 4 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


their inhabitants were in the narrow, paven roads ; 
but their usual noisy cries, and rough altercations, 
and bursts of song, and shrill oaths, were all stilled ; 
the people were very quiet, and they were moving, 
as by one accord, towards the lofty marble gate, 
which had seen the passing of the triumphs and 
the funerals of two thousand years before. There 
were more street guards than usual in the lanes 
and roads ; they did not interfere, but they were 
in threes and fours together, and looked sullen, 
suspicious, ready to use their arms on the first 
excuse. 

Othyris understood without questioning any one. 
The people were going to honour the dead body of 
Platon Illyris in whatever way they might be able 
to do so. 

The news of the death of Illyris had awakened the 
dormant memories of the populace. His life had 
belonged to a past generation ; his memory had been 
faint in the thoughts of the living multitudes ; that 
he was near them in a still breathing presence had 
never been realised. But with one of those great 
waves of nervous feeling which move the multitudes 
of men in cities, as the ocean is moved by subter- 
ranean forces, the plebs of Helios had been stirred 
by Ednor’s article on the dying hero into a sudden 
consciousness of its own ingratitude, and of the claims 
on it of its long-neglected deliverer. 

In the noble and commercial quarters of the city 
there was no agitation ; only annoyance and a vague 
fear, the sense of an unwelcome ghost arisen and 
intrusive. But in the poor quarters stretching 
towards the west, and down to the port, the awaken- 
ing was general and repentant. The name of Illyris 


XXI 


HELIANTHUS 


325 


ran like a fiery messenger through the crowds, almost 
as in the years of their grandsires’ youth. 

Into their pale blood, dulled by the monotony of 
modern toil, some warmth of an earlier spirit 
entered; into the heavy hopelessness and sullen 
covetousness, which grow together in the breast of 
the sons of labour, there arose some purer, finer 
recollection and desire. It was far away from them, 
that epopee of their grandsires, and the fruits of its 
heroism had been reaped by others than themselves, 
but some reflection from the glow of its heroism fell 
on them and illumined the narrow chambers of their 
joyless and sunless souls. From them to others who 
felt less, and who understood nothing, the electrical 
current of sympathy ran as the magnetism of evil 
or of good always flows through the unconscious- 
ness of crowds. Thousands and tens of thousands 
were thrilled from head to foot, wept, moved, echoed, 
strove, pressed onward and upward, scarcely know- 
ing why, but crying c Illyris ! Ulyris ! ’ as the crowds 
in all ages shout Adonai or Barabbas, as the sugges- 
tionism of numbers makes them do. Women di- 
shevelled and bare-bosomed ; children thrown down, 
crushed ; struggling youths and maidens madly wav- 
ing boughs of laurel, as in the Daphnephoria of old ; 
the bronzed, half-nude porters and stevedores of the 
quays ; fishers, and mariners, and boatmen from the 
harbours; the workers from factory, and engine- 
room, and cellar ; the pluckers of pelts, the makers 
of chemicals, the marble-workers, the bird-snarers, 
the rag-pickers, the sea-weed gleaners, the carpet- 
weavers, the killers and cleaners of fish ; all the in- 
numerable divisions of the great, weary, hungry 
classes, who thronged together between the centre of 


326 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


the city and the Gate of Olives, in swarms like the 
conies of the sand plains ; — all these with one im- 
pulsion pushed against each other in their upward 
way, and, now breaking their silence, shouted as 
with one voice — 

c To the Pantheon ! To the House of the 
Immortals ! Bury him by Theodoric ! * 

In ever-increasing numbers, and now with deafen- 
ing cries, they struggled, like a shoal of fish pushing 
through a weir, up the road which led towards the 
olive orchards of Aquilegia. The police did not inter- 
fere, but they were reinforced by detachments of cara- 
bineers, mounted, with their arms shining in the sun. 

There joined the crowd from other quarters of the 
town students, artists, artisans of a higher class, and 
also the unemployed, — those unemployed by choice, 
and those in enforced idleness through misadventure, 
all the gabies and all the loiterers who come out into 
the streets when there is anything to see or hear in 
them ; but the multitude remained, in its vast 
majority, essentially of the populace. 

Othyris had got out of his carriage before the 
first stragglers had arrived at the foot of the ascent 
to Aquilegia, and had taken the familiar path which 
wound up amongst the olive-trees, — the precipitous 
bridal-path which he had taken on his first visit 
to Illyris ; he hoped to reach the house before the 
crowds from the town could do so. He was out of 
the sight of the throngs who were still at the base of 
the hill, but the sound of their shrill outcries reached 
him as he mounted the mule-track between the great 
trees ; he could even distinguish the words, ‘To the 
H ouse of the Immortals! To the House of the 
Immortals ! ’ 


XXI 


HELIANTHUS 


32 7 


‘Surely,’ he thought, ‘if any should lie in that 
House, he has supreme right to do so/ 

The atmosphere was glorious with light and 
warmth ; the deep-blue skies seen between the 
boughs, the golden shafts of sunlight, the shimmer- 
ing silver of the vault of olive leaves, the shining 
marble and jasper and porphyry dust beneath his 
feet, the emerald lizards, the brilliant ruby gladiolus, 
the bright gold of the tansy discs, were all dazzling 
in the radiance of morning; but for once his soul 
was without response ; he was harassed by regret, by 
doubt, by apprehension. 

Would the noonday pass without bloodshed ? 

Would his father’s government be tolerant of this 
gathering ? 

Would the demand for the burial be granted? 

And Ilia Illyris ? What would she do ? 

The sounds of the shouting people, low down at 
the foot of the hills, were borne to his ear through 
the sweet sylvan silence. He hastened onward, hop- 
ing to see her, to be able to warn her in time to 
keep the bier within the house, and thus to avoid 
all which might appear collusion with the public 
demonstration. But as the mule-path took a sharp 
narrow bend to the right, he saw, on another curve 
above, under the olives, a coffin borne on the shoul- 
ders of Janos and of five labouring men, and behind 
it . the veiled figure of a woman. His heart stood 
still with emotion. It was the figure of a solitary 
mourner coming slowly down the side of Mount 
Atys with all that remained to her on earth of rela- 
tive or friend. 

If she went downward another mile, he knew that 
she would inevitably meet the people of Helios as 


3^8 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


they ascended. At any cost of repulse or offence 
he felt that he must for her own sake arrest her 
on her dangerous path. He went out from the 
shade of the great trees and with uncovered head 
approached her, raising his hand in a gesture, which 
made the bearers of the dead body pause, the bier 
resting on their shoulders. 

She paused also; he could not see her face, not 
even her eyes, through the black gauze. 

c Even in such an hour as this ! * she said, as if to 
herself, in wonder and repugnance ; even in such an 
hour could he not leave her alone ! 

Othyris, with his head uncovered, stood reverently 
by the side of the coffin. 

c Go back/ he said to her, c go back, I entreat 
you. There are thousands of people coming up the 
hill. They come in all honour and reverence, but 
there are rough men and coarse women amongst 
them; many have come up from the docks and the 
lowest quarters, and their excitement is increasing 
every moment. Go back, whilst there is time/ 

She did not move ; she only imperfectly under- 
stood his meaning ; she heard the sounds, like the 
swell of the angry sea, which came from the foot of 
the hill, but she did not know that it was the mutter- 
ing of human voices which blent with the familiar 
murmur of the breakers on the shore below. The 
bearers lowered the coffin gently to the ground, and 
stood, bareheaded, listening. 

‘ Is it the people of Helios who at last remember 
him, do you say ? * she said, with a great calmness in 
her voice. c It is late ; too late ! ’ 

c It is too late indeed/ said Othyris with emotion. 
‘They cannot hinder his going to his last rest. 


XXI 


HELIANTHUS 


3^9 


Let me pass, sir; I only take him to the graveyard 
or the poor/ 0 3 

‘ They would take him to the Pantheon/ 
c That would surely be his right? ’ 
c Undoubtedly, but the matter will not pass with- 
out conflict, trouble, perhaps bloodshed. The 

crowd is honest and penitent, but it is rough. 
There will be scenes unfit for you, unseemly for his 
memory. Go back to the house, I entreat you/ 

. C W h y ? 1 do not fear the people of my father’s 

city. J 

‘ They will not harm you by intention. As their 
mood is now, they would die for you, but you do 
not know what a perilous and inflammable thing is 
a mob. I fear, also, they will not be allowed to re- 
turn peacefully to the city. I mean that they will 
not be permitted to bear this coffin to the mausoleum, 
as they wish to do. There will be, I fear, collision 
and conflict between them and those in authority.’ 

‘With your father’s communal guards, with your 
father’s troops ? ’ 

‘ With the guards of the city, with the troops of 
the State.’ Y 

‘ I understand. The Gunderode will fear him, 
even dead ! They will find him, even dead, too 
great; as the corpse of the Guise seemed to the 
Valois! Janos, go onward.’ 

The labourers bent down, and raised the coffin to 
their shoulders. 

‘Wait! Wait, for pity’s sake,’ cried Othyris, 
despairing to move her by any reasoning. ‘ He who 
lies hidden from us in that shell lived forty years in 
silence and obscurity to avoid all danger of strife and 
bloodshed which might have arisen from the magic 


330 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


of his name. Do not risk those dangers now over 
his dead body. He would bid you not run the risk 
of insurrection and military intervention. 

c I do not speak to you of any peril you yourself 
may run/ he continued, after vainly waiting for some 
answer or some sign. ‘I know that personal fear 
would not weigh with you for an instant. But he 
would be the first to stand between the people and 
their impulses, could he now arise from the dead. 
I can imagine no greater grief to him than for his 
name to become the cause of strife.* 

She was silent. 

On the lips of any other speaker the words would 
have touched her heart and convinced her. On his 
they had a taint of self-interest, of authority, of that 
menace of the power of the State which had never 
been heard by Illyris with tolerance or obedience, 
and against which all the principles of those she had 
loved had been arrayed. 

c Lady/ said Othyris, with great emotion in his 
voice, c no one ever lived who had more reverence 
for the dead than I. You cannot doubt my entire 
good faith, or the sincerity of my counsels. I en- 
treat you not to make this sacred bier a cause of strife 
and bloodshed, the beginning of civil war. I will 
answer to you and to the people of Helios that the 
uttermost shall be done to obtain for his memory 
due honour, and for his tomb a fitting place. But, 
in his name, I implore you not to lend yourself to 
what will degenerate into party odium, not to embit- 
ter this solemn hour with fratricidal hatreds. If his 
dead lips could speak, he would surely say to you : 
<c Go back, my daughter ; go back.” * 

She listened ; her head drooped, the veil shadow- 


XXI 


HELIANTHUS 


33i 


ing her features ; the accent of his voice went to her 
heart ; she felt his sincerity, she felt his wisdom ; she 
was conscious that to resist his counsel was to be 
headstrong, unwise, unworthy. 

‘Take up the coffin,’ she said to the men who 
had brought it there. ‘ Let us return to the house, 
and await nightfall.’ 

They obeyed her without a word. 

Othyris bowed very low before her, as people 
bowed to him. r 


‘I thank you,’ he said humbly. C I will now go 
and speak to the people, and hear their wishes.’ 

The bearers and their sacred burden remounted 
the narrow, rocky path under the great olives, Ilia 
Illyris walking beside them. Othyris descended the 
hill in the direction of the ascending mob of people, 
the confused shrill clamour of whose voices and the 
louder chorus of the Hymn of Kos rose upward from 
the lower slopes and from the beach. 

He was wholly uncertain of his own power to con- 
trol or to persuade them ; he was well aware that in 
their present enthusiastic and enraged temper they 
might see in him only an enemy, only a scion of 
Theodoric of Gunderode. He could not tell what 
their, mood might be, or what reception even to 
ferocity they might not give him. 

But all he thought of was Ilia’s safety, and the 
necessity of saving the city from insurrection. The 
popular temper was like melenite ; a spark might 
cause a ruin incalculable and irremediable. 

A few minutes brought him within sight of the 
earliest stragglers of the throng ; they recognised his 
tall and slender form as he came down through the 
silvery olive foliage. 


33 * 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c Elim ! Elim ! ’ cried the foremost men. c Elim ! 
Give him his rightful place of burial ! Let him lie 
by Theodoric ! ’ 

They pressed forward to reach the King’s son, who 
in their eyes was all-powerful, in whom they were 
disposed to trust, but in whom, nevertheless, they 
could not feel sure that they had an ally or a pro- 
tector. 

He was well known and was beloved in those poor 
quarters whence came these throngs of working- 
people, and by the shore which sent forth the 
stevedores, the porters, the boatmen, the stokers, the 
fishermen ; but they could not be sure how far they 
had his support in the temerity of their demand on 
the Crown. 

He was always their protector and friend, but 
they could not be sure if they could rely on his as- 
sistance against his father; and of the King’s 
antagonism and refusal they could have no doubt. 

He was only one man against many thousands, but 
as he came towards them, out of the deep shade of 
the trees, he awed them. In his serenity, his com- 
posure, his simplicity, he appealed to their respect ; 
and by that difference from themselves which was in 
him he forced from them a not unwilling admiration, 
a vague consciousness of superiority. 

He uncovered his head as he approached them 
and they cheered him. They knew that there was 
great courage in his action. 

He mounted a boulder of rock by the roadside 
which made a natural rostrum and stood there a 
little above them. As far as they could be seen for 
the trees the people were in great numbers, and the 
sound of the footsteps of the ascending masses 


XXI HELIANTHUS 333 

answered the sound of the sea dashing angrily on the 
beach far below. 

‘ My friends/ said Othyris, ‘ you and I have come 

doubtless on the same errand, in the same feelings, 

honour for the great man who has left us. What is 
it that you would do? What is it that you desire? * 

‘ To take his body to the House of the Im- 
mortals/ shouted a hundred speakers ; all the men 
who were foremost and nearest, and the shriller voices 
of the women and children and youths, echoed the 
cry : c To the House of the Immortals ! * 

‘ What were you about to do to obtain your end ? ’ 

A clamour of innumerable voices rose in chorus ; 
in the confusion of sound he could distinguish their 
threats to seize the bier and bear it through the city, 
and before the palace of the Soleia demand from the 
King the burial of Illyris beside Theodoric. He 
knew that if they carried out their threat his father 
would only reply by the bayonets or the musketry of 
his troops. John of Gunderode would not parley 
with his populace. It was a perilous moment ; they 
were in a perilous mood. When an idea possesses a 
crowd, it is obstinate with the obstinacy of the insane. 
It was very probable that if Othyris thwarted them 
in their present mood they would turn their fury 
upon him. He was one against a multitude; he 
was unarmed; they might seize him as a hostage 
or they might slay him as a scapegoat. No one 
can ever say what form the delirium of a mass of 
people may not take. 

But Othyris felt that their actual mood must be 
dominated or there would be bloodshed in Helios. 
He raised his hand to ask for silence, and little by 
little the loud tumultuous cries died down. Swaying 


334 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


and pressing around the rock on which he stood, 
the people waited to hear him speak. 

c My friends/ he said to them, c your desire is 
natural and just. Do not imperil its fulfilment by 
violence or haste. Do not go upward to the house 
where he dwelt, for there are only women, who 
would be alarmed. First, obtain the certainty that 
you may lay his body in the Pantheon of Helios ; 
then come hither to fetch it. If you begin with riot 
and clamour, you will fail in your demand, and you 
will prove yourselves unworthy of your self-imposed 
mission.' 

An angry hissing protest followed on his words. 
They were in no mood for reason. They were in 
the mood for revolution ; and Othyris knew that his 
father would no more treat with them or argue with 
them than a huntsman with his hounds. If they could 
not be induced to go to their homes quietly there 
could be no issue except insurrection. He had never 
before seen an angry mob, for he had always been 
welcomed everywhere with a sincere and often an 
enthusiastic attachment. It is an ugly and a formid- 
able spectacle at all times. The strong smell from 
their unwashed flesh and their unclean clothes tainted 
the fresh mountain air, stifled the odours of the 
flowers and grasses. c O humanity ! what a dread 
beast you are ! ' he thought, as all must do who see 
it in its nakedness, stripped of hypocritical pretence 
and the cover of courtesy. But such as it was he 
had to deal with it and dominate it, or hundreds of 
them would go up to the house of Ilia and would 
profane the peace and solemnity of death. He 
looked down on the inflamed faces of the men, the 
nude breasts of the women, the tangled hair and men- 


XXI 


HELIANTHUS 


335 


acing eyes of the youths, the laurel boughs broken 
and dust-covered, the little children alarmed and cling- 
ing to their mothers’ skirts; he could hear the tram- 
pling on the rocky road of many others not as yet in 
sight , the frightened birds flew out from the foliage, 
the clear brooks ran across the road, over the soiled’ 
bare feet, and, touching human flesh, became defiled. 

‘ People of Helios ! ’ said Othyris, and his voice 
was far-reaching as the note of a clarion. 1 People 

Helios, hearken to me. You must go back to 
your homes in peace and decency, or I can be with 
you in nothing. It is wrong and impious to make a 
great hero s death a moment for disorder and riot. 
Y ou can accomplish nothing by brawling. The tomb 
of Illyris ought to be made where the great men of 
Helianthus lie ’ 

‘Was Theodoric a Helianthine? ’ a man called 
from the crowd. 

was not/ Othyris answered calmly. 
But that is beside this question. Illyris was a 
pure-bred Helianthine, and you desire that he should 
have his sepulchre made in the mausoleum of the 
country. Well, go back to your homes, and I 
promise that you shall have your desire ; but I will 
do nothing for menace or insult.’ 

The multitude was silent. The courage of his 
speech and the calmness and dignity of his bearing 
impressed them. But one voice shouted from the 
close-pressed throng : — 

‘You promise, you say! You are a prince. 
Who can trust princes ?’ 

‘ You may trust me,’ said Othyris coldly. ‘ I give 
you my word that the body of Platon Illyris shall lie 
in the House of the Immortals.’ 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


336 


c The word of a Gunderode ! ’ said an angry, rude 
voice from an unseen speaker. 

Othyris coloured with pain rather than offence. 

‘ The word of a gentleman/ he said briefly. 

The people cheered him. 

c The word of an honest man/ said one of their 
leaders. c We will trust him, friends. If he fail us, 
we can chastise/ 

‘ He will not fail/ said a woman. 

A man who was a worker in metal and had a fine 
countenance and a lofty stature shouted in a clear 
resounding voice : — 

‘ Let us trust him. If he fail us he shall answer 
to us. And whether by peace or by force Illyris 
shall lie with Theodoric/ 

‘It shall be so/ said Othyris. ‘Now go,, my 
friends, to your homes. So you will best do his will. 
He lived in solitude and obscurity for forty years 
rather than cause disunion amongst his countrymen. 
If the State forgot him, you also, his people, his 
children, remembered too little/ 

The conscience of the throng was moved, its 
remorse was stirred, its regrets were stung to the 
quick; the men and the youths were silent, and the 
sobs of some women were audible in the stillness. 

‘Go to your homes/ said Othyris. ‘We will 
meet soon again/ 

Then he descended from the stone platform, 
and uncovered his head in farewell to the multitude. 

A loud, long, echoing cheer rose from the ranks 
of the populace. They had faith in him. 

They pressed around him ; they were curious, 
grateful, excited, awed ; they wanted to see him 
close, to feel his clothes, to touch his hand, to see 


XXI helianthus 337 

him face to face ; they were dangerous out of the 
ktTim thClr enthuslasm ’ for the y w ere unwilling to 

‘ Come with us ! Come with us ! ’ they shouted : 

HeLr nted t0 ^ h ‘ m ^ in tr ' Umph into 

But he knew that if he were seen with them all 
possible chance of gaining the realisation of their 
wish would be destroyed. It was impossible that 
he should enter the city as the companion and the 
leader of this mob. 

‘ Fall back. Leave me free/ he said to them. c If 
you detain me, if you hamper me, you will render 
it impossible for me to obtain you the fulfilment of 
your wish. My friend/ he added, turning to the 
man who had said ‘ Let us trust him/ ‘ you have 
influence over them, keep them back. Leave me 
free. Otherwise I can do nothing. Nor will I, by 
any force which they can use, go down into Helios 
in their company/ 

There was a savage, sullen muttering of chagrin 
and of offence in the people nearest to him. They 
were offended, and they were conscious that they 
could by brute force make their offence felt. 

c People of Helios/ said Othyris, ‘you can kill 
me if you like ; I am unarmed, and you are many in 
numbers. But you cannot make me do what I do 
not choose to do, or what I think unworthy. Let 
me pass/ 

Let him pass, said the man who had said ‘ Let 
us trust him/ The people hesitated ; Othyris took 
advantage of that hesitation ; he shook off the hand 
laid upon him, and with tranquillity and dignity 
passed through them to the woods on the opposite 


33 3 HELIANTHUS chap, xxi 

side of the road. Thence there ran a by-path, con- 
cealed by the darkness of the deep shade, which led 
down towards the shore; Janos had one day shown 
him that woodland way. He was at once lost to 
the sight of the crowd in the dark foliage of the 
close-growing trees. 

< If he fail us, we shall know how to avenge it/ 
said the man from the docks once more. 


CHAPTER XXII 

The official spies and professional informers, with 
whom Helios, like ail modern cities, was infested, 
had of course, as soon as these events happened, in- 
formed the authorities of what had occurred and of 
what was menaced. The troops were immediately 
confined to barracks ; the guns of the fortresses turned 
upon the town ; the sentinels doubled, and all those 
precautions taken which render a successful insur- 
rection almost an impossibility in any modern and 
monarchical country. 

The demonstration had taken the Government 
by surprise and found them unprepared ; and the 
alarm bells of telegraph and telephone were ringing 
frantically wherever the governing forces of civil and 
military control were located. But the people were 
peaceable, though enthusiastic and excited ; and the 
Ministry decided that they should not be interfered 
with, so long as no revolutionary cries were heard 
and no revolutionary emblems displayed. 

Michael Soranis, who had succeeded Kantakuzene 
when the latter was defeated over the Crown Prince’s 
scheme for the fortification of the Hundred Isles, 
was still Prime Minister. As a politician he was 
considered eminently safe, and slow, and sure ; he 
had been often in office when the monarch or the 
339 


340 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


country had been desirous of quiet and sleep. He 
was adroit, conciliatory, plausible, with no stiffness 
of backbone, or disagreeable stability of principle, 
about him. It was hard on such a Minister to be 
confronted with a dilemma so difficult, an obstinacy 
so painful. Soranis was essentially an opportunist; 
he had been a physician in early life, and knew how 
to soothe excited pulses, lower high temperatures, 
persuade to painful cures, and amiably divert 
diseased fancies ; but this position required strength, 
and he was not strong. 

He had entered the arena of politics on the buck- 
jumping galloway of Radicalism ; but it had been 
always unsuited to his taste and powers, and he had 
for many years seated himself more comfortably on 
the park-hack of Liberal Conservatism. He liked 
to amble smoothly over the tan, in the circus of high 
office, with the diamond stars due to successful 
equestrianism on his breast. 

This affair, which was a great disturbance, almost 
an insurrection, troubled him greatly. It was un- 
expected, inconvenient, dangerous, and most ill- 
timed. Like many active political events it had 
sprung out of a mustard-seed fallen in a gutter, and 
might be big with confusion and convulsion. It was 
a water-spout in a clear sky. It was a heat-wave in 
a cool land. It was a falling mast on a winning 
schooner. It was a squirming black squib in a 
bather’s sunny creek. It was any imaginable 
torment which could upset the desirable, and create 
the perilous. Go which way it would, end how it 
might, it would cause him to be assailed equally by 
hostile and by friendly groups in the Chamber. It 
was a ball of pins with all the points set outward. 


XXII 


HELIANTHUS 


34i 


Let him take it and hold it as he would, he must 
inevitably be pricked by it. He would almost 
certainly please none by his treatment of it. He 
would quite certainly offend either the King or the 
nation. 

Like all successful men Soranis had many enemies. 
He knew that these would all eagerly seize on this 
incident as on a dead cat to throw at him. True, the 
Chambers were not then sitting; it was the brief 
recess of Pentecost ; but time intensifies malice, as it 
adds to the bitterness of the brandy in which peach 
kernels are steeped. He knew that his enemies 
would not let a single point against him rest, or lose 
by waiting. What also complicated his responsibility 
was that the King and the Crown Prince were away 
shooting, having left the city at dawn for one of the 
royal forests in the hills. 

He felt that the position was a cruel and unjust 
one for a politician who had never failed to trim 
his course with the most skilful and scientific naviga- 
tion. The terrible mixture of the Danish Hamlet 
and the English Henry the Fifth which seemed to 
him united in the person of Othyris appeared to him 
more perilous to himself and his Cabinet than any 
number of anarchical conspiracies. He admired 
Othyris; he recognised the charm, the talent, the 
courage, the altruism of the King’s second son ; but 
he felt that a revolutionary prince was a sore difficulty 
in the path of a Minister of the Crown, who only 
asked of fate to be all things to all men. 

All Soranis had desired and tried to bring about 
had been that peace external and internal should last 
his time and let him die in office ; that the nation 
should be quiet and orderly, reasonable and pliable, 


34 2 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


should never be noisy or quarrelsome and create 
embarrassments, either at home or abroad. This 
was, he thought, the least the Helianthines could 
do in return for his own admirable government ; a 
beautiful buoy of cork floating serenely on an oiled 
sea. Yet, behold them ! Up in arms, and baying 
like the brutes they really were ; with no gratitude 
for the smooth years of subsidised coriynerce and 
increased national debt which he himself had given 
them ! The throne, the army, the navy, the ex- 
chequer, the police, the church, had always been 
kept by him in respect and prosperity, following 
each other inharmonious sequence like the Corinthian 
columns of a temple portico ; and these ignorant and 
yelling crowds, who knew nothing of the beauties of 
political architecture, were endeavouring to resus- 
citate the memory of a forgotten patriot whose shade 
was as much to be dreaded by authority as the ghost 
of Hamlet's father by Hamlet’s step-father! 

Soranis felt that he had neither the years nor the 
temper to cope with such a position, and, as though 
the question in itself was not thorny and difficult 
enough, there was added to it the extreme embarrass- 
ment of the entrance into it of the King’s second 
son. 

The Minister was no stranger to the permanent 
differences existing between the father and the son. 
More than once these had strained all his tact and 
persuasiveness to the utmost in the effort to prevent 
the friction from becoming visible to others; and a per- 
verse fate seemed to accumulate causes and reasons 
for their divergence. To him, as to the royal family, 
the perversity of Elim seemed diabolical. 

Born to the most enviable fate that the heart of 


XXII 


HELIANTHUS 


343 


man could desire, why could he not be content with 
it ? To Soranis, son of a provincial apothecary, and 
a struggling professional man himself in early man- 
hood, it seemed monstrous that a prince could be 
dissatisfied with his lot. Therefore, when Othyris 
said to him, c I have given my word to the people 
that Illyris shall be buried in the Pantheon/ nothing 
but the extreme reverence for rank of a democrat 
who has been converted to reactionism could have 
restrained him from a choleric and irreverent im- 
precation. 

Instead of such a natural ebullition of temper, 
he said, nervously, and with a sigh : — 

C I fear, sir, that your Royal Highness did not 
realise, did not consider sufficiently, the extreme 
embarrassment which such a promise on your part 
would cause to the government/ 

/ I did not think of the government, certainly/ 
said Othyris. 

c Nor of His Majesty/ said Soranis, timidly and 
tentatively. 

/ Where does my father come into this question ? * 
said Othyris. 

Soranis made a little deprecatory murmur of pro- 
test. 

Where, ^ he thought, did His Majesty not enter, 
all-pervading essence of will and conscience as he 
was ? Who should or would be concerned in the 
question of a burial in the House of Immortals, if 
not the monarch who considered his grandsire the 
first of all immortals ? 

Othyris knew well that to the King the demand 
for the interment of Illyris under the same dome with 
Theodoric would appear a blasphemy, a treason, an 


344 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


unspeakable infamy ; but he did not intend to discuss 
that side of the subject. He waited awhile for some 
more complete reply from Soranis. Failing to receive 
one, he said : — 

c Your Excellency cannot fail, I imagine, to per- 
ceive the stringent necessity which exists that the 
warrant of my word shall be made good by all the 
powers responsible for law and order ? ' 

c No doubt, sir, no doubt/ murmured Soranis, but 
with no great firmness of tone. c No doubt your 
Royal Highness must be supported.' 

In his own mind he saw vividly two pictures: the 
one of a crowd which would comprehend no argu- 
ments except cannon ; the other of a monarch who 
would neither understand nor endure any arguments 
whatever. He himself was between Scylla and 
Charybdis. 

c You can only support me,' replied Othyris, c by 
carrying out my promise to the people.' 

Soranis nervously balanced a paper-knife on his 
finger. 

c Would it not have been possible, sir, for you to 
— to — have avoided the incident altogether ? ' 

c I did not wish to avoid it. I sought it. But it 
is quite useless to discuss this part of the question 
now. What has been done cannot be altered.' 

c May I ask, sir, did the mob seem to you to be 
getting beyond the control of the police ? ’ 

c The people were orderly and reasonable,' said 
Othyris, with emphasis ; he resented the epithet of 
mob. c The police did not interest or occupy me 
at all.' 

The Minister drew himself up a little stiffly. To 
touch with irreverence these guardians of the State is. 


XXII 


HELIANTHUS 345 

in the eyes of a Minister, to use a chasuble and a 
reliquary as a cigar-box and a spittoon ; the priests 
ot the altars of authority would burn the sacrilegious 
profaners if they dared. 

‘ The civil-servants of order risk their lives, sir,’ 
he said coldly. 

‘They are armed to the teeth,’ said Othyris as 
coldly. J 

< , ^ lament, sir, murmured Soranis with reproach, 

‘ that you do not recognise all that government owes 
to them/ 

( ' * ^ e g your Excellency/ said Elim with impatience, 
not to let us waste time in discussing the virtues of 
your agents de suvete. I come to you to know if you 
will keep the pledge which I gave to the people of 
this city in the name of the State. You will not, I 
imagine, be willing to dishonour my word/ 

^ Pray, sir, consider, said Soranis in agitation. 

As I understand from yourself and from others 
present, you have assured the citizens of Helios that 
the body of Platon Illyris shall be buried with public 
honours in the Pantheon ? ’ 
c Precisely/ 

‘You are of opinion, sir, that you avoided a 
revolt and persuaded them to disperse quietly by 
making this promise ? * 

c I repeat, I told them that, if they would go to 
their homes without disturbance, their wishes as 
regards the dead man should be respected and carried 
out ; and though they had certainly no cause to trust 
me, being who I am, they were good enough to have 
faith in my word and to separate tranquilly. It is 
absolutely certain that the government must ratify 
my promise, or disgrace me so utterly in my own 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


346 


sight, and that of the country’s, that I would not live 
a day under the weight of such opprobrium/ 

c Pray, sir, pray ! ’ said Soranis, with a feeble, im- 
ploring gesture of his hands. c You forget, sir, you 
most unfortunately forget, that not your Royal 
Highness, nor myself, nor my colleagues, are free 
agents ; the only supreme arbiter in this, as in all 
matters, is His Majesty the King/ 

‘You exaggerate my father’s power, which you 
seem to forget is not absolute ; it happily stops short 
of enforcing any man living into the business of 
tricking a nation.’ 

‘ But, sir — but, sir — pardon me, you had no title 
to give that promise ; it is invalid ; it is no more 
than a minor’s signature to a donation.’ 

‘ It is invalid if the government do not ratify it; 
that is, I alone am impotent to enforce your fulfil- 
ment of it. I am as impotent as the minor to whom 
you compare me. But there is one thing of which I 
am master, and that is my own life. I will not live 
as a liar in the sight of a multitude that trusted 
me. Let the body of Platon Illyris be laid in state 
in the Pantheon, and let his tomb be made there. It 
is nothing strange or wrong. He will but have his 
rightful place, here in the heart of Helios, beside the 
man to whom he gave a kingdom. What is it for 
you to do? Nothing. But if it be as hard as to 
move mountains, and to dry up seas, you will do it. 
I tell you I will not break my faith with the people 
of Helios.’ 

‘ Sir, sir,’ muttered the unhappy Minister, c you 
ask of me impossibilities, you expect miracles ; you 
must know that His Majesty, your father, will never 
allow the bones of the revolutionary Illyris to be laid 


XXII 


HELIANTHUS 


347 


by the hallowed dust of the Great Theodoric. It is 
out of all question. To speak of such a project even 
to His Majesty would be an outrage ! ’ 

Othyris passed over the protest, as too puerile to 
call for refutation. 

‘It js for your Excellency to make His Majesty 
the King understand that the will of the people in 
this matter must be done. You will only have to 
show the Red Spectre. My father does not love the 
Red Spectre.' 

‘ He has never quailed before its apparition, sir ! ' 

‘ No ? Are you sure ? ' 

Soranis met the eyes of his visitor and did not 
support their inquiry very steadily. 

‘ It is impossible. It is impossible,' he said in 
ever-increasing agitation. c Set my devotion to your 
House to any other test, sir ! ' 

‘ This, and no other,’ replied Othyris. c In 
twenty-four hours' time let the body of Platon Illyris 
lie under the dome of the mausoleum.' 

Soranis shook like a leaf. 

‘ If this young man ever be king ! ' he thought ; he 
felt that if that ever came to pass, such Ministries as 
that of the Soranian would be things of the past. 

‘ His Majesty is shooting at Rodonthe,' said 
Soranis helplessly. 

‘ Send to him there.' 

‘ I dare not, sir, I dare not ! ' 

‘ It is your duty.' 

‘ Sir, His Majesty will not be disturbed by any 
Minister when he is engaged in the chase.' 

‘A Minister must disregard such orders when 
there is question of the public weal.' 

But Soranis was not a man to place the public 


34 § 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


weal first and the royal will second. When he ate 
the breast of a pheasant shot by a sovereign it seemed 
to him of more exquisite flavour than that of 
ordinary pheasants ; and no doubt the public thought 
so too, for poulterers found it answer their purpose 
to ticket game exposed for sale in their shops, ‘Shot 
by H. M. the King.' The nobility smiled ; the 
populace laughed ; but the middle classes purchased 
and ate. We know that in all lands the middle 
classes are the backbone, the spinal marrow, the 
moral and mental medulla of the nation ; but the 
spine is a little too ready to bend. Soranis, born of 
them, kept their soul though he rose above their 
class and changed his shape. 

‘ Why not see His Majesty yourself, sir ? 9 he said 

nervously. c Your eloquence * 

‘ My eloquence/ said Othyris, ‘would but act as 
an irritant. My father and I are not friends/ 
Soranis gave a gesture of entreaty and pain. 

‘ Then what a task you set me, sir ! * 

‘ Let me hear from you at my own residence/ said 
Othyris, tired of argument; then, humbly accom- 
panied by the Minister into the open air, he took 
his leave. 

Soranis returned to his library and threw himself 
into a deep chair, a limp, quivering, silent, helpless 
little figure, his grey head bowed upon his hands. 
He had not the slightest intention of going to Ro- 
donthe ; no one ever disturbed the King when shoot- 
ing. He loved power, he loved dignities, he loved the 
indulgence of nepotism, the pleasures of patronage ; 
he loved his Court dress, the insignia of great orders ; 
he loved the deputations at railway stations, and the 
banquets in municipal halls ; he loved the panegyrics 


XXII 


HELIANTHUS 


349 


of the home newspapers and the applause of the 
foreign Press ; he loved the familiar intercourse with 
sovereigns, the smiles of royal women, the luxury of 
special trains, the whole atmosphere of homage, of 
success, of ambition gratified and of far heights 
scaled, of lucrative investments made easy by early 
knowledge of coming events ; and all these pleasures, 
the crown of life, were imperilled for him by a mad 
young man and a crazy crowd ! Soranis, for the 
first time in his career, felt that the uncertainty of 
circumstance, and the pressure of accident, are unjust 
factors in the careers of successful and self-made 
men. 

Soranis was a great believer in soporifics, politi- 
cally called trimming ; he was always the advocate of 
middle courses, of safe concessions, of slow and 
careful steering of the ship of the State. The events 
of the morning as he understood them in outline 
troubled him infinitely, and the part which the heir- 
presumptive to the throne had taken troubled him 
still more. It would be impossible for the govern- 
ment to disown the act of a prince of the blood ; and 
it seemed to him quite as impossible that the gov- 
ernment should ratify it or that the monarch should 
condone it. A solution of the dilemma would have 
been possible to an extremely reactionist or to a 
frankly revolutionary Ministry; but to his, which 
was a see-saw between the two, and pre-eminently 
conciliatory, the difficulty was overwhelming. 

Obsequious though Soranis was to Othyris, nothing 
would induce him to send a messenger to Rodonthe ; 
and Othyris hesitated to send one himself, knowing 
that any direct communication from himself could 
only embitter and prejudice the cause he had under- 


350 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


taken to support. There was nothing to be done but 
to await the return of the monarch from Rodonthe ; 
and no one knew when this would take place. 

Soranis came to the palace of Othyris two hours 
later after a painful period of indecision and distress. 

c I have decided, sir/ said Soranis with dejection 
and a nervous movement of his thin small hands, 
c that I cannot take upon myself the task which you, 
sir, have allotted to me. I cannot in conscience 
recommend His Majesty to take such a course as the 
admittance of the remains of an Illyris to the 
Pantheon of this city. I dare not, sir, even broach 
such a subject to the King. I am unequal to all 
which would ensue, did I do so. I am old, I am 
unwell ; I am wholly unable, sir, to go through such 
trying scenes as must ensue on such a demand. 
When I have audience with His Majesty I shall 
merely tender my resignation on the score of my 
health and my inability to cope with the present 
situation, and advise him to send for His Excellency 
Demetrius Kantakuzene, to whom such a mission as 
your Royal Highness has confided to me will 
probably appear at once sympathetic, and of a piece 
with his opinions and interests.' 

He paused, coughing to hide his emotion, for he 
suffered acutely. 

Adieu , veau , vache , cochon, couv'ee ! He was more 
to be pitied than the girl of the fable, for he had 
possessed the eggs and the chickens, had killed the 
fat pigs and pickled them, and had cow and calf in 
his byre. He had enjoyed all the charms of office, 
and might have done so for years to come, but for 
the quixotic folly of a headstrong young man. 

‘You have decided wisely, I think/ replied 


XXII 


HELIANTHUS 


35 1 


Othyris coldly. £ But in this manner much time 
will be lost, and time in this matter is all important. 
Send Kantakuzene unofficially to me to-night/ 
c What, sir ? ’ murmured Soranis, aghast. c To see 
you — before being summoned by the Crown ! Such 
a step would be wholly without precedent, wholly 
unconstitutional/ 

/ Oh, I do not mind being unconstitutional ! ’ 
said Elim, with the smile which his elder brother 
found so impertinent. c The Constitution is a 
rickety fabric and does not impress me ! * 

c Oh, sir,’ exclaimed Soranis, ‘ I entreat your Royal 
Highness to weigh what you say ! ’ 

‘And I entreat your Excellency to waste no more 
time/ said Othyris with impatience and authority. 
c If you desire and intend to resign as soon as my 
father returns, I beg of you, in some way or another, 
to send this, with my message, to the deputy for 
Concordia/ 

He held out a slender key which he had taken 
out of his waistcoat pocket. 

# c Give him this pass-key. The trustiest of my 
friends will meet him and bring him to me. You 
will not go to him personally, no doubt. But your 
Excellency must send some safe and confidential 
person to him, for he must be here before my father’s 
return from Rodonthe. I pray your Excellency to 
lose no time. Do not force me to remind you that 
my honour is pledged to the people of Helios.’ 

Soranis was like a tortured animal held immovable 
to endure electrical shocks. 

c I entreat your Royal Highness to reflect that you 
may some day be called on by Providence to rule 
over this realm ! ’ he murmured feebly. 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


35 2 

c God forbid that day should ever dawn ! 9 said 
Othyris. ( It is, I think, improbable that wild boars 
will have killed both my father and my brother this 
morning at Rodonthe ! ’ 

c Oh, sir ! How is it possible to jest ? ’ ejaculated 
Soranis. Was it possible that a scion of a reigning 
House could speak thus of his august relatives ? 

Othyris rose with that sterner and colder look 
upon his face which men feared in the rare moments 
that it came there. 

c Your Excellency will pardon me if I deprive 
myself of the pleasure of your presence. But in this 
matter there is not a moment to be lost. Beg 
Kantakuzene to come here by the garden gates at 
the north side of this house as long before my 
father’s return as possible.’ 

Soranis felt dominated and cowed ; he was not 
brave, either morally or physically ; and although 
he had no doubt that there was some lesion in the 
brain of this headstrong prince, yet that conviction 
only made him the more anxious to escape from the 
presence of Othyris. He took a formal and a 
humble leave, and went, taking the garden-key with 
him ; a sad and mortified man, conscious that he 
might have gone on smoothly and pleasantly through 
various sessions, trotting round the ring in the circus 
of office, if Platon Illyris had died, as he should in 
the course of nature have died, some thirty or forty 
years earlier on some foreign strand of exile. The 
great Theodoric, the contemporary of Illyris, had 
died of a surfeit of oysters and red burgundy when 
only fifty years of age. 

Providence takes so little account of men’s 
appetites and digestions ! It does not, indeed, seem 


XXII 


HELIANTHUS 


3 S3 


even to have ever reckoned with them as what they 
affairn faCt ° rS ln the dis P os al of human 


In the course of an hour the garden pass-key was 
duly conveyed to the deputy for Concordia, who 
came to the postern gate of the gardens of Othyris 
entered the gardens unseen, and took his way, with 
stnct care for secrecy, to the private apartments of 
the King s second son. Kantakuzene felt consider- 
able curiosity as to the reason for his unofficial sum- 
mons. He attributed it, however, to the events of 
the day, which he had himself followed with keen 
interest and considerable apprehension; knowing 
well that it is easier to excite a crowd than it is to 
control it, to set a ball rolling down a slope than to 
stop it. 


Even as he was ushered into the presence of 
Othyris, he heard the people gathered in the Square 
of the Dioscuri calling on the name of Elim, and 
making that shrill clamour which in Helianthus does 
service both as felicitation and as menace, as a shout 
of homage and a threat of vengeance. 

Kantakuzene was carefully on his guard before 
this unexpected summons. He did not conceal his 
mingled admiration and. disapprobation of what had 
taken place, at Aquilegia ; it had perhaps saved the 
city from riot, but it had created a most difficult 
position for the government and the monarch. 

Kantakuzene did not lack courage, and when he 
thought that it was necessary to speak the truth he 
did so. When he found that Othyris desired him 
to go to the King, he said frankly : — 

‘.It would be impossible, sir. Nor would His 
Majesty receive me in such a capacity. He could 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


354 


not possibly do so. You seem to forget that I am 
the -leader of the Opposition.’ 

c You cannot approach him unless you are sum- 
moned ? ’ 

‘ I cannot, of course, sir.’ 

‘ Not to save the city from bloodshed ? ’ 

< Such a breach of etiquette would save nothing, 
sir.’ 

Othyris was silent. He saw that Kantakuzene 
was right. 

‘What is to be done, then?’ he asked. ‘My 
promise must be kept in twenty-four hours. Half 
that time has already passed. I would write to the 
King, but he would not read any letter from me.’ 

‘ Why, sir, did you take so brief a period ? ’ 

‘ The people were unwilling even to give me so 
much as that. They desired to obtain the body of 
Illyris then and there, and carry it down into the city 
and up to the Pantheon. You must know what 
would have taken place if they had done so.’ 

‘ But you, sir, would not have been responsible. 
The responsibility lay with those in power, whose 
duty it was to preserve order.’ 

‘And how is order always preserved? Round 
the coffin of the man who gained a kingdom for my 
race, the blood of his fellow-people would have run 
like water, unarmed crowds would have been cut 
down like grass.’ 

‘ The guilt, sir, would not have been yours.’ 

‘ Thirty years ago, would you not have done as I 
did?’ 

‘ Perhaps, sir. Youth is rash.’ 

‘ And age and success are selfish.’ 

‘I admire the nobility of your action, sir; but 


XXII 


HELIANTHUS 


355 


meanwhile the position you have created is most 
strained, most dangerous. Do you believe that His 
Majesty, your father, will allow the people to take 
Illyris to the Pantheon ? * 

c No ; I do not/ 

c Then you are prepared to throw your life away 
to produce no result ? * 

‘ I shall certainly keep my word in one manner 
or the other to the people of Helios/ 

Kantakuzene was silent. 

£ My father fears revolution/ added Othyris. 
c But he unfortunately believes in the superior strength 
of repression/ 

Kantakuzene thought, what he could not say, 
that the death of his second son would be more wel- 
come than his life to the ruler of Helianthus. 

c Was it necessary, sir, to give such a pledge, to 
go to such extremes ? ’ he said. c Could you not 
have persuaded the people to disperse and return to 
their homes ? ’ 

c No, I could not have done so/ replied Elim. 
c Nor did I seek to do so. They gave a tardy re- 
membrance to the greatest man the country has ever 
owned, and their conscience led them aright. 
What ! A public burial with national honours to 
Domitian Corvus, and the hero of Argileion and of 
Samaris shoved under the earth in a graveyard of the 
poor ! The instinct of the people was entirely right/ 

Kantakuzene was silent. 

He could not deny ; he dared not agree. Morally, 
Othyris had every argument on his side ; in practical 
politics he was hopelessly wrong. He had encour- 
aged the populace to coerce the Crown. 

To Kantakuzene, who had been Prime Minister 


35 6 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


before, and intended to be so again, the offence 
seemed very great. He admired it ; he understood 
it ; his sympathies were even aroused by it ; but he 
condemned it. In a mere demagogue it might have 
been praised ; but in a son of the King it was a 
grave offence. 

Honour is a fine steed on which to excite the 
plaudits of a crowd ; but Honour generally meets 
with rough and stony roads and has poison put in 
his drinking-water. 

Kantakuzene knew that a sharp and short re- 
pression by troops of the crowds would have been 
less dangerous to the peace and polity of the country 
than was the encouragement to rebellion given by 
this alliance with the people of the King’s second son. 

c You were with the people in the days of your 
youth, I am aware,’ said Elim. c Even now it is the 
people whom you represent, and in whose cause your 
eloquence is often heard. It is for the sake of the 
people, not for mine, that you must urge my father 
to accede to their just desire. If he refuse, there 
will be civil war in the streets in Helianthus.’ 

‘ No doubt,’ thought Kantakuzene, as he remained 
silent; ‘and if you have tenacity of purpose, and 
audacity and resolve and egotism enough, it is quite 
possible that you may make Helianthus a republic 
and yourself its head.’ 

c You must warn my father,’ said Othyris; c no one 
else will do so.’ 

c If His Majesty summon me, I will do my best 
to convince him of the danger of insurrection,’ re- 
plied Kantakuzene. ‘ If he do not, it will be im- 
possible for me to go to the Soleia.’ 

‘That is understood,’ said Othyris. c In that 


XXII 


HELIANTHUS 


357 


event there will be bloodshed. Nothing will avert 
it.’ And he rose and gave his hand to Kantakuzene. 

He was tired and anxious to be alone. 

Kantakuzene returned to his own residence, which 
was close by ; the throngs in the Square of the 
Dioscuri were still calling on the name of Elim. 
Kantakuzene was of a temperament which is happiest 
in perilous events, in . difficult crises, in the excite- 
ment and the responsibility of complicated intrigues 
and obligations ; he was constitutionally courageous, 
he loved to wrestle with men and throw them! 
Usually, he did throw them ; and he had seldom 
had a fall himself. 

But his present mission was an anxiety, even a 
terror to him ; he did not see his way clearly. Such 
a mission as Othyris had given him was wholly out 
of order, and to advise the King to open the gates 
of the House of the Immortals to Platon Illyris 
seemed to him a task of which the issue might very 
probably be to close on himself the gates of public 
life for ever and aye. He was relieved when he 
heard at his own house that the King had not re- 
turned from Rodonthe. The respite gave him 
time to reflect and to prepare for any event. 

He was aware that as a Radical leader he could 
not himself accept office if he were forced to oppose 
the desire of the people. Yet, even to him, the 
entrance of the bier of Illyris into the burial-place 
of the Immortals appeared an offence to the reign- 
ing House which it would be impossible for the 
head of that House to condone. 

c If only the people will trust me and be patient ! * 
thought Othyris. 

When the evening papers announced that Soranis 


358 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


was about to resign, there was great agitation in all 
political spheres of action. It was unexpected. It 
alarmed all capitalists and speculators. To many 
it was unintelligible. Men were half the night in 
the streets. The cafes and restaurants buzzed like 
hives when the bees are swarming. The troops 
were, of course, kept confined to their barracks. 
Throngs of people stood through the short hours of 
the summer night in the Square of the Dioscuri be- 
fore the palace of Othyris. But he made them no 
response to their enthusiasm, and neither came into 
the Square nor on to the balcony ; they shouted till 
they were hoarse, but always in vain. 

It was past midnight when the carriages of the 
royal sportsmen rolled with noise and dust over the 
marble pavements of the streets and crashed into the 
great court of the Soleia, followed by the carriages 
ofthegentlemen who had accompanied the expedition, 
and by the brakes bearing the bleeding carcases of 
the grand beasts, stags, does, elands, wild boars, 
slaughtered for the princely pastime in the close 
season and in the breeding time. 

The King, fatigued and drowsy, had only one 
desire, his bed. The heaviness of sleep and stupor 
made the news which awaited him appear the more 
intolerable, and he muttered in his throat oaths 
which chilled the blood of his gentlemen of the 
chamber. But he refused audience to any one ; he 
left all action to the morning light ; he threw him- 
self on the narrow mattress of his camp bed, and 
dropped at once into a deep slumber in which both 
his body and his brain were stupefied by carnage, by 
brandy, by fatigue ; no one dared disturb his august 
repose. 


XXII 


HELIANTHUS 359 

Beneath him, stretched on stone floors in the 
palace cellars, the grand forest creatures he had 
slam still dropped blood from their innocent mouths 

His son Elim did not sleep. He passed the 
chief part of the night revising the various manners 
in which he had already bequeathed his properties 
and provided for the consequences of his own death 
for he was fully resolved not to live a day if, as he 
knew was probable, his promise to the people’should 
not be carried out by the State. 

His country should know, at least, that he had 
been no traitor. It was a point of honour to him, 
as it is to the man who has drawn the fatal lot which 
imposes suicide upon him ; and, considering the re- 
fusal as inevitable, he prepared for it. Soranis and 
even Kantakuzene were more agitated than he. 
He was as calm as the Due d’Enghien was on that 
fatal morning, when the young Bourbon’s chief 
anxiety was for the future of his dog. In the small 
hours of the morning messages came to Othyris 
that the King had returned, and that he had gone to 
his rest without receiving any Minister or even the 
Prefect, of the Palace. No one dared arouse him. 

‘It is certain, I imagine, that he will refuse,’ 
thought his son. 

.Othyris could not in honour have done any other 
thing than that which he had done. Yet in his own 
sight he seemed to have failed in his duty towards 
those who could not help themselves and whom he 
had bidden return to gods that he knew to be false. 
Men would praise him perhaps, praise his filial 
loyalty and his rejection of personal popularity ; but 
though he knew he could not have done otherwise 
with self-respect, yet he felt himself that he had 


j6o HELIANTHUS chap, xxii 

failed, where one less scrupulous and more selfish 
might have taken fortune at the flood. Are there 
not moments in life when a lesser crime should be 
done to avoid a greater crime ? Is there not many 
an instance, in the records of history, of evil having 
been boldly done, that good should come out from 
it ? 

It seemed to him impossible that any man living 
should bend the will of the King. Illyris, in the 
opinion of the King, was a republican who had been 
a rebel ; the populace was a hydra-headed monster ; 
the popular will was an insolence, a treason, a fever 
as contagious and dangerous as the plague, and to 
be stamped out like the rinderpest. 

The dead and the living were to the ruler of 
Helianthus alike unpardonable, insupportable. 

Othyris had given his word to the people in order 
to avoid a popular outbreak, a beginning of revolu- 
tion which might be fraught with consequences incal- 
culable ; but as his word could only be kept if his 
father gave him the power to keep it, he had no 
hope that he should be able to do so. 

There was only one way in which he could prove 
his sincerity to the people if he were denied the 
power to give them their will. 

Death alone could speak for him in clear and 
certain tones. The people would not misjudge his 
motives, nor would the woman whom he loved. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


The King rose late the next morning: his temper 
always bad, was that of a fasting tiger ; it was not 
improved by the news which awaited him, or by the 
black coffee and cognac with which he broke his 
fast. His olive skin grew duskier, his sullen eyes 
colder and more obscured; he was enraged with 
others for that delay in the conveyance of the 
intelligence to him which had been entirely due to 
his own fault in refusing to hear anything whatever. 
He cursed every one : the governor of the city, the 
commandant of the troops, the chief of the police 
the central government, his Ministers, his household! 
aD “>°' course, his second son beyond all others. 

That . I should have bred an anarchist 1 ’ he 
thought, in fury ; and he cursed his dead wife in her 
grave. 


The action of the populace was to him as un- 
pardonable as a kick from the wheeler, or a jib from 
the leaders, is to the driver of a four-in-hand. His 
Ministers assured him that the present effervescence 
was as harmless as the froth of seltzer ; but he had 
once seen a seltzer syphon explode. 

Meanwhile the crowds increased with every ten 
minutes, and were fed by numbers of peasants from 
the outlying country, come in with the produce of 


361 


3 62 HELIANTHUS chap. 

their ground, who remained to see what might 
happen. 

The Crown Prince was sent for by the King; to 
him, as to his father, the whole events of the previous 
day appeared diabolical ; and neither of them could 
understand why the crowd had not been dispersed 
with bayonets or by an infantry volley. It was such 
a simple thing to do. What use was the governor 
of the city if he could not do it ? As for Elim, they 
knew well that he was a second Egalite. Nothing 
that he could do surprised either of them. 

To calm these furious waters, to moderate these 
raging cyclones, seemed to Michael Soranis, when 
ushered into their presence, a task wholly beyond 
his strength. John of Gunderode, in a suit of 
shepherd’s plaid tweed, with a red cashmere neck- 
erchief wound about his throat — for he was hoarse 
from a chill taken in the woods whilst standing still 
awaiting the driven deer — was not Jupiter Tonans 
nor even Louis Quatorze ; and his son Theo was not 
the Black Prince, or Don John of Austria, but a red- 
faced, bullet-headed, angry, alarmed person, twisting 
bristling moustaches and breathing fiercely like a 
chained-up bull-dog. Yet such as they were, they 
carried fear and awe into the breast of the Prime 
Minister, who was not a Sully, a Bismarck, a 
Ricasoli, or a Richelieu, but a plausible and pliant 
opportunist who disliked absolutism and revolution 
equally, and was absolutely incapable of speaking 
unwelcome truths to his sovereign. A Minister 
ought not to be a courtier ; but, unfortunately, the 
two words are too often synonymous. 

Morally the spine of Soranis grew more supple, 
as physically it grew more rheumatic. Reactionism 


XXIII 


HELIANTHUS 


363 


increases in an aging statesman as crust on the 
aging bottle of port wine. The loaves and fishes, 
which to his youth used to seem indifferent, become 
more indispensable to him as time goes on; and 
their abundance on his own table appears to him the 
correct measure of national prosperity, because it is 
the measure of his own personal success. 

To Soranis, therefore, it was in all sincerity the 
most painful of missions to stand before these two 
angry gentlemen, and endeavour to pour the oil of 
deprecation on the raging waters of their wrath. 
He knew that he was only partially trusted by 
them ; he knew that they always saw in him a half- 
hearted conservative and monarchist, a person of 
doubtful and debatable principles ; they always re- 
membered against him the years during which, as a 
doctor from the provinces, he had sat on the left 
benches. How persuade such hearers that the wish 
of the populace must be respected, without appearing 
to be still the tribune of the people? How excuse and 
uphold the action of the King’s insubordinate son, 
without seeming to be the apologist of an anarchist, 
the partisan of a rebel ? His naturally timid temper 
and his failing health rendered him incapable of such 
a dual task as the pacification of a furious monarch 
and of an excited populace. He left power with 
sore distress; he knew that at his age he could 
never return to it. When in office Corvus had, 
indeed, been much older than he himself now was ; 
but Corvus had been made of brass and steel. 
Soranis was of far more fragile stuff. With intense 
pain and mortification he felt that he had nothing to 
do except to place his resignation in his sovereign’s 
hands ; and the King, without any amenity of speech 


364 HELIANTHUS chap. 

or manner, accepted it with a few unkind incisive 
words. 

The aged statesman was bloodless, exhausted, out 
of breath, when he passed out of the Soleia. 

‘Sir/ he said feebly to Othyris, a few minutes 
later, £ I found myself unable to recommend to His 
Majesty the ratification of your Royal Highness’s 
promise to the people of Helios. I could not 
reconcile it with my public duty nor with my 
private powers ; I have therefore placed my resigna- 
tion in His Majesty’s hands, as I had the honour to 
inform you that I should do. I have advised him to 
summon His Excellency Demetrius Kantakuzene.’ 

c You have done well,’ said Othyris, ‘but do you 
believe that the King will send for Kantakuzene ? * 

c His Majesty always acts constitutionally, sir.’ 

c In form, perhaps, he does,’ thought Othyris, 
c but in spirit not often.’ 

c Sir,’ said Soranis, greatly woebegone, c your royal 
father has upbraided me for the actual course of 
events. He used expressions which I felt were 
unjust, for I have always done what I believed to be 
my duty.’ 

c I am sure that your Excellency has always acted 
for what you considered the interests of the country,’ 
replied Othyris ; and he felt that he did the fallen 
Minister no more than justice. For Soranis was 
one of those public men who are neither hypocrites 
nor liars, but who deceive themselves into the belief 
that they serve their nation when they only serve 
themselves. 

Soranis had, like many another successful politician, 
believed that his own measures were wholesome 
medicine for the maladies of the State ; that his own 


XXIII 


HELIANTHUS 


365 


ascendancy was the best of all paregorics, and his 
own administration at once a purge, a tonic, and an 
anodyne. 

Humbly, wearily, almost tearfully, the ex-Premier 
took his leave; and Othyris, left alone, thought: 
c Kantakuzene if he be called will fail.’ 

To account for the sudden fall of Soranis it was 
reported in the official Press that he had suffered 
from a slight attack of cerebral paralysis. But no 
one believed it. Every one felt sure that the 
paralysis from which he suffered was the inability of a 
feeble politician to cope with an unexpected situation. 

Early in the forenoon it was rumoured that the 
resignation of Soranis had been accepted, and that it 
was expected that the King would send for the 
leader of the Opposition. The news of the resigna- 
tion, and the hope that Kantakuzene would be called 
to office, tended to soothe and pacify the people in 
the streets, and they waited without agitation and 
impatience for further intelligence. 

They believed in Kantakuzene. He had stepped 
past them, and shut the doors of reform in their 
faces many a time, but he remained nevertheless their 
ideal reformer. 

The courage of Kantakuzene was usually stimu- 
lated by difficulty, but the task now before him 
seemed to him greater than any man born of woman 
could bring to a successful issue. But he accepted 
the position, and brought to it all his acumen, finesse, 
and knowledge of men. That he should be summoned 
when the streets of Helios were full of agitated and 
excited people flattered his self-esteem and at the 
same time moved his patriotism, which had never 
been an artificial or insincere sentiment, and armed 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


366 


him at all points against the wrath of his sovereign. 
Kantakuzen^ was neither false nor dishonest ; but his 
views, like those of most men who succeed, changed 
with his fortunes. It is natural that the man who 
has arrived at a political altitude should not think ill 
of a world which has allowed and assisted him to 
arrive. The sentiments of a successful man change 
imperceptibly with his success, but not necessarily in- 
sincerely. To the young lawyer, holding a brief for 
an insurgent, revolution seems a very different mat- 
ter to that which it appears to him when he is a 
statesman who can consign troops to barracks or send 
them out with fixed bayonets to clear the streets. 
There is as much difference between the two stages 
of the same man’s life as there was between a goat- 
herd on the slopes of Olympus and the Olympian 
Zeus throned upon the clouds. 

All the wisdom of Socrates only brought him the 
cup of hemlock. Successful men know that ; hence, 
so gradually that they are unconscious of the trans- 
formation, they become hard, cold, gluttonous, 
cynical, mercenary ; their price is a very high one, 
but they have a price. Their ideals lie dead, as 
dead as the wild-flowers which they gathered in their 
childhood, and threw down on the grass of paths 
which their feet will never tread again. But Kanta- 
kuzene did now and then look at the field-flowers, 
even as Disraeli did at the primroses. He was not 
absolutely disloyal to his early tenets ; but he, like 
Disraeli, let them lie in abeyance. 

Like most men who are not fanatics or visionaries, 
he cared principally for his own interests; but after 
his own — a long way after — he did care for the 
interests of his country. 


XXIII 


HELIANTHUS 


367 


He knew that these were imperilled by the policy 
of the King and of the reactionary party which over- 
weighted a poor nation with fiscal burdens, sacrificed 
all useful progress to military expenditure, and was 
the dupe of showy and useless alliances, which kept 
the tired people armed to the teeth and bowed down 
under the pack-saddle of a monstrous taxation. Office 
was naturally his goal for his own personal ambi- 
tions, but in addition to these for his sense that he 
understood the people better than his rivals, and 
could benefit them more. 

When he received the summons of his sovereign, 
he felt not only the elation of a politician flattered by 
being called to serve the Crown in a difficult crisis, 
but something also of the patriotism which is ready 
to confront a dangerous issue for sake of the country. 
The moment was critical. He knew that if the 
people became more excited and were refused the 
demand for the burial of Illyris in the city, their 
rage would become ungovernable, and, though they 
would be probably worsted eventually, they were 
certainly in the mood to face the troops ; and it was 
possible that the troops might go over to the popular 
side. Kantakuzene knew that there was much secret 
disaffection in the barracks of Helios. If Othyris 
should cease to be neutral, and should come out into 
the streets and take their head, it was probable, 
thought the statesman, that there would be civil war 
of the most bitter kind — of the populace against the 
ruling power. 

To avert this seemed to Kantakuzene his own 
supreme duty. The time had been when he would 
have welcomed such a conflict, and have done his 
best to conclude it in favour of the populace. But 


3 68 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


that time was past ; he had been Prime Minister 
before now ; he desired to be so again. To risk, 
instead, revolution beside a young man who was a 
poet rather than a politician, whose scruples were as 
many as the sands of the sea, and whose courage 
was constantly being checked by the hesitations of his 
conscience, never entered the mind of the deputy 
for Concordia. 

There are transmigrations which are against nature. 
The revolutionist may develop into the Minister. 
The Minister never becomes again the revolutionist. 
So Kantakuzene, on receiving the summons from 
the King, hastened to the Soleia. 

Kantakuzene was by instinct and early training a 
special pleader : he had been in early years remarked 
for the skill, the suavity, the courtesy, the persuasive- 
ness of his speeches in the courts of justice. He had 
brought into political life that shrewd and subtle 
management of men which he had learned at the 
Bar. 

A bourgeois, a notary's son, a self-made man, 
there was a certain awe even for him in princes, a 
certain spell which magnetised him momentarily ; 
but he was never ventre a terre before royalty, like 
Deliornis or Soranis ; and when his momentary trepi- 
dation passed off, which it did soon, he was master 
of himself, and at times, as he was now, master of 
them. 

He had not been a famous advocate without 
knowing how to move his fellow-men by the mere 
charm and force of words. The King and the Crown 
Prince were indeed not susceptible to eloquence, but 
his adroit speech reached to the hidden sources of 
their secret fears, and conjured up before their dull 


XXIII 


HELIANTHUS 


369 


minds that vision of the Red Spectre which haunts 
at night the pillows whereon crowned heads uneasy 
lie. J 

The populace was to them both but as a worm on 
which to set their heel 5 but Kantakuzene made them 
reluctantly realise that the worm might turn into a 
viper, nay, even into a python ; and that the heel 
even of Achilles was vulnerable in the modern suc- 
cessors of Achilles. They were both clothed in the 
impenetrable armour of pride, of prejudice, of vanity, 
of caste, of ignorance ; but the shafts of his ingenious 
and deferential words pierced the joints of their 
armour, and made the network of nerves beneath 
the armour thrill. 

In the Alps, at certain seasons, a single shot fired 
may bring down an avalanche which may bury 
villages. Kantakuzene used the metaphor, and made 
them feel that the season was come, the avalanche 
above their heads, the atmosphere surcharged with 
danger of no common kind. 

The heir to the throne would have dared all, 
would have fired the shot, though the avalanche had 
engulfed him ; but the actual occupant of the throne 
was more moved by the impending danger : under his 
stolid and cold mask he was afraid of what might 
happen — he did not wish to go and live on his 
millions in a foreign country like a retired stock- 
broker ; he knew well that the man who has reigned 
is on ceasing to reign dwarfed and crippled for the 
rest of his natural life. 

He did not believe in the possibility of his own 
deposition, his own exile ; but he could not altogether 
resist the impression of the alarm which Kantakuzene 
so skilfully suggested without ever giving it a shape 


370 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


which could offend. A vision rose before him of 
his son Elim chosen as President of a Helianthine 
Republic, even as Henri d’Orleans, had he had more 
spirit for combat or less loyalty to his family, might 
have become president of his nation and master of 
her fate. 

Willingly, and with fierce pleasure in his slow 
veins, would the King have arrested his son, have 
called out the troops, have raked the streets with 
musketry fire, and blocked the squares with cannon ; 
but the serum of fear was infiltrated into his veins 
by an accomplished adept in mental therapeutics ; 
and Kantakuzene, with his flute-like voice and per- 
suasive speech, was, momentarily at least, his master. 
Jealousy and fear, two doubtful counsellors, made the 
King estimate the popularity of his second son as a 
far more potent factor than it actually was. He 
attributed to Elim projects and ambitions which Elim 
had never harboured, and which were indeed wholly 
alien to his temperament. A mind which sees every 
side of each question, which is doubtful of the wisdom 
of any step, which is divided between emotions and 
opinions, between censure and sympathy, is not a 
mind to conceive and execute hardy and daring 
schemes of self-aggrandisement : such a mind, as it 
shrinks from decision, is untempted by lust of power, 
since in all power all action must be swift, sharp, 
unhesitating, and certain of itself. 

Othyris would have been fully as reluctant to 
head a republic as he would have been unwilling to 
reign ; he abhorred responsibility, and had no belief 
in his own wisdom to sustain him under it. This is 
not the temperament of ambitious agitators. But the 
King had never had either the inclination or capacity 


XXIII 


HELIANTHUS 


37i 


to study and understand his son's character, and to 
his narrow and angular intelligence the intricacies and 
scruples of such a character were not even conceivable • 
he only saw in the nation's favourite a rebel in public 
life and a rival in private life. The King was afraid ; 
he was in the power of a son whom he had threatened’ 
ridiculed, coerced, hated ever since the day that he 
had shot the eagle to wound the tender heart of a 
child. He was afraid— afraid of exposure, of scandal, 
of losing before the sight of men that reputation of 
cleanliness and of chastity which he had maintained 
so carefully throughout his life. 

Kantakuzene attributed the evident irresolution, 
which had. succeeded the dogged obstinacy and’ 
impenetrability of the King's attitude, to that dread 
of the Red Spectre of which Othyris had spoken ; a 
spectre which haunts the sleep, and dominates the 
waking thoughts of all potentates. ‘ He is afraid,' 
he thought. ‘ Will he yield to fear ? ' 

Kantakuzene was not a vain man ; his self-esteem 
never obscured his judgment; therefore he did not 
attribute to his own persuasion the gradual change 
which he perceived come over the King’s countenance 
and. attitude. John of Gunderode rose out of his 
chair and paced the carpet with steps which indicated 
an uneasy mind ; his sullen features had on them a 
transient expression of anxiety ; he smoked feverishly, 
throwing aside his cigarettes scarcely consumed ; his 
hands were thrust into his trouser pockets, his eyes 
were veiled under their heavy lids. The Crown 
Prince looked at him furtively in astonishment, not 
daring to speak. 

Kantakuzene thought, ‘ Is it possible that he is 
wavering ? Is it possible that he is afraid ? ' There 


37 2 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


were hesitation and indecision indicated in the move- 
ments of the monarch. 

Precisely as the chimes and clocks of the city 
sounded the second hour of the day, Demetrius 

Kantakuzenewas ushered into thepresence ofOthyris. 

Othyris laid down the volume he read, and the 
cigarette he smoked ; he was tranquil ; he seemed 
even indifferent. 

‘ Your Excellency is punctual. Has the struggle 
been hard ? * 

He saw that it had been hard. The countenance 
of the Minister was worn, pallid, harassed, drawn. 

His voice was almost inaudible, and his breath 
was drawn in quick gasps as he answered: — 

< I have had the honour, sir, to be ordered to 
convey to the public the news that His Majesty the 
King graciously consents to honour the body of 
Platon Illyris with sepulture in the Pantheon, called 
by the populace the “ House of the Immortals.” * 

‘ I congratulate you/ he said to Kantakuzene. 
c You have won a bloodless victory where defeat 
would have cost much bloodshed.’ 

‘ Sir,’ said Kantakuzene, ‘ thank God that your 
life is not to be thrown away in its youth. Your 
motives would never have been understood or your 
sacrifices appreciated.’ 

c That would not have mattered,’ replied Othyris. 
c What would have mattered is that there would have 
been civil war in Helios.’ 

Kantakuzene sighed, as an overstrained horse 
sighs when reaching the summit of a hill of stones, 
its sinews swollen and its lungs choked, resting with- 
out rest. 


XXIII 


HELIANTHUS 


373 


He had won this battle in the privacy of the King’s 
closet ; but all the other battles with party, with 
opposition, with colleagues, with supporters, with 
the Senate and the Press, with the committees and 
the constituencies, were all yet to be fought. To 
Othyris the matter seemed at an end; but to the 
politician the endless coil of difficulties appeared as 
yet scarcely touched, and although he was victorious, 
he thought like Wellington that victory was the 
next saddest thing to a defeat. 

€ What made him yield ? ’ asked Othyris. 

c I cannot tell, sir.’ 

Kantakuzene was too adroit to couple fear with 
the royal name. Othyris thought it was dread of 
the Red Spectre ; he never supposed that it was 
dread of himself. The motive, however, did not 
matter ; what was of import was that the desire of the 
people was granted. He scarcely gave a thought 
to the fact that his own life had been spared. 

Kantakuzene, though only Prime Minister-elect, 
had acted with promptitude and temerity. He 
had given orders that, so long as the multitudes 
remained only harmlessly excited, they should not 
be molested, but that upon the slightest sign of dis- 
turbance or menace the repression should be severe. 
The people, however, gave no excuse for such 
severity. They were gratified, grateful, orderly, 
though effervescent and emotional, and crowded 
together in the streets chanting with tears and 
smiles their national songs, and shouting that for 
once unchastised Hymn of Eos, which had roused 
their fathers’ fathers in dungeon and cell, on the 
benches of galleys, and by the cold hearths of rural 
cabins. 


374 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


By the unconscious obedience to that magnetic 
current which moves a crowd, the bulk of the people 
had come towards and into the square in which 
the residence of Othyris was situated, and were 
shouting his name before its long and imposing 
frontage of pale fawn-coloured marble. 

His gentlemen, sorely disquieted, conversed to- 
gether in troubled tones. Othyris was alone in his 
studio, where no one of them ever dared to follow 
him except by his command. Through the long 
perspective of rooms which opened one out of 
another, they could see the lights glittering in the 
Square, and the sound of the people’s outcries echoed 
to them through the open windows of the last salon. 
Would the crowd disperse quietly, they wondered, if 
no answer were vouchsafed to it ? The gates stood 
wide open, as usual ; the porter with his gilded stick, 
and the two sentries, the only guardians of the build- 
ing, would be easily overpowered if the mob should 
become angry ; within the palace there was a crowd 
of servants, but those would be of no use for de- 
fence. The courtiers grew nervous as the cries of 
the citizens became more insistent. 

Like the Scots of old they agreed that some one 
should bell the cat, should enter their master’s atelier 
and give the alarm ; but no one of them cared to 
accept that office. Every few minutes one or other 
of them walked through the rooms and looked from 
behind the draperies of one of the windows on to 
the piazza below. In the centre of it was the vast 
fountain, a work of the sixteenth century, placed 
between the statues of the Dioscuri ; dolphins and 
sea-horses plunging ; adolescents astride on them, 
laughing ; towering columns of water shooting up- 


XXIII 


HELIANTHUS 


375 


wards, turning in the air, falling downwards in 
torrents of foam. In the electric light directed on 
it, its marbles and its waters were one mass of silver. 
Around it, and filling the whole square, were the 
many-coloured and motley representatives of the 
various arts, and crafts, and labours, and degrees of 
industry and poverty which made up the democracy 
of Helios. They entirely filled the great space; on 
two sides were palaces used for public offices ; at the 
opposite end to that of Othyris there were public 
gardens with dense tall trees and palms of untold age. 
The populace made that hoarse ominous sound, 
like that of a sullen sea, which is its habitual note 
both in joy and in rage. But ever and again above 
the clamour there rose a clearer call : it was the call 
on the name of Elim by the people who loved him. 

The gentlemen, who one by one gazed down on 
the spectacle from behind the curtains, were alarmed 
and impressed ; the numbers of the crowd increased 
with every moment as new-comers poured in through 
the various streets which led to it. 

The cries grew more turbulent, the press more 
feverish; the chanting of the Hymn of Eos was 
crossed by the refrain of the Gallian hymn of revolu- 
tion and the translated strophes of northern odes to 
Labour and to Anarchy. They were in that mood 
when, if the will and the power to direct them be 
there, such throngs can be led to any excesses, to 
any crimes, through a sea of blood. 

The courtiers consulted together : Othyris must 
be told, they again agreed, but by whom ? 

c He must hear them in his studio/ said one of 
the gentlemen. c If he choose to come out to them 
he will do so.’ 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


37 6 


In their own thoughts they all blamed him deeply 
for his encouragement of the demands of the people, 
who, in their estimation, were but the mere tools of 
the socialists. 

As they whispered together, and the shouts of the 
throngs echoed through the great, silent, lighted 
suite of apartments, the door which opened into the 
corridor leading to his study was pushed back, and 
Othyris himself came towards them. They were 
surprised to see how pale and agitated his counte- 
nance was, for they knew that the traditional courage 
of the royal House was in no member of it greater 
than in himself. But with a firm step he passed 
by them, saluted them by a courteous gesture, and 
went through the rooms to those end windows 
which looked on the piazza. 

The windows opened on to a large balcony. He 
passed out on to it, and stood looking down upon 
the populace. He was recognised at once, and 
greeted with the passionate warmth of a southern 
people. He waited a little while for the first vehe- 
mence of their welcome to spend itself, then he 
advanced to the marble balustrade and held up his 
hand. In the comparative silence which ensued his 
voice reached clear and unwavering to the strained 
ears of the expectant throngs. He could have done 
with them in that moment whatever he had chosen. 

c My friends/ he said to them, c I thank you for 
your kindness, but no honour is due to me ; I my- 
self was powerless. Take your gratitude whither it 
is due — to one who, possessing the power, had 
also the will to do that which you wished — our 
sovereign lord the King/ 

It was loyalty, it was filial duty, it was the fealty 


XXIII 


helianthus 


3 77 


of a gentleman to his race; but it was not what the 
people desired or expected. An angry murmur rose 
from their restless ranks. 

‘ I have no other bidding for you, my friends. If 
you believe that you owe me anything, obey me now,’ 
he said, and stood still a moment to see what effect 
his words had on them. He felt as if he betrayed 
them. He felt untrue to his own faiths, and to their 
faith in him. But what other course was open to 
him ? He could not lead them to the siege of the 
Soleia. 

A brawny giant from the docks, naked to the 
waist, with a red cap on his black poll, shouted back 
to him : — 

c To hell with John of Gunderode ! It is you we 
want ! ’ 

c You ! You ! You ! We want you ! ’ the 
whole multitude echoed as with one voice. But 
already Othyris had gone back into the room, and 
they saw him no more ; nor did he return to the 
balcony, though with impassioned entreaties and 
imprecations they implored him to come out to them 
once more. 

Two agents of police, supple and strong as 
pythons, had glided through the closely-pressed 
ranks and seized the man of the docks and dragged 
him away out of sight, with an action so rapid and 
noiseless that the people scarcely realised what had 
been done, and had neither time nor chance for 
rescue. 

When Kantakuzene congratulated him with 
warmth and gratitude on his answer to the populace, 
Othyris received his compliments with great coldness. 

c Surely I could have done nothing else ? ’ he said 


378 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


with curt disdain. ‘You would not have had me 
lead them to the siege of the Arsenal or the sack of 
the Soleia ? * 

The Minister thought, but did not say, that it 
was precisely these things which many would have 
expected from a prince in open antagonism with the 
Crown. 

He himself was not a little astonished at the 
inertia, as he considered it, of a young man who was 
avowedly a malcontent, and, as all knew, on ill terms 
with his royal father. 

( He has had his opportunity/ he thought, ‘ and 
he has thrown it away ; it will not come back again. 
Blood would have run like water, of course; but it is 
just possible that if he had put himself at the head of 
the people he might have made himself master of the 
city and the throne. The King grows more unpopular 
every year, and the army is mined by socialism. We 
could not be perfectly sure of its obedience in any 
serious conflict with the populace.' 

And Kantakuzene, who had a pleasant sense of 
humour, laughed a little to himself as he imagined 
his august master, as he mighthaveseen him, hurrying 
out in travelling cap and mackintosh, by a side door 
of the palace, in the grey of dawn or in the dead of 
night, and getting on board a steamship to go where 
his millions were safely awaiting him over the seas. 
The Crown Prince, he thought, would have stayed 
and would have fought like a bull-terrier to the end 
in such an event. 

As it was, the demonstration ended harmlessly ; 
on the morrow the people returned peaceably to their 
work. They were only partly satisfied, but reckoned 
that half a loaf was better than no bread, and to have 


XXIII 


helianthus 


379 


the future™^ 006 ar § uet * we ^ to them for 

The person who gained most by the events was 
the person to whom they had seemed most threaten- 
ing. Kantakuzene became once more as popular with 
the masses as he had always been in the days of his 
earlymanhood. Tohisinfluencethepeople attributed 
their victory, and to his influence the bourgeoisie 
attributed the peaceful issue of a dangerous move- 
ment. Only the King and the Crown Prince, who 
had always disliked, now hated him ; he had forced 
royalty into concessions to the popular will. 

The authorities were still in great alarm. The 
troops were still confined to barracks. The number 
ot guards in plain clothes with revolvers hidden was 
very large. But the elaborate military precautions 
taken were in a great measure concealed, and that 
portion of the people which had been concerned in the 
demonstration of the previous days was too elated to 
be alarmed or to take umbrage at such precautions 
against itself as it perceived. They were proud of 
their own victory, with that thoughtless, inflated, 
dangerous conceit which in all ages and in all climes’ 
throws the plebs into the arms of its antagonists at 
the critical moments when calmness and self-restraint 
might give it a chance of victory. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


The homage of the public to Platon Illyris on the 
morrow was without pomp, or parade, or military 
spectacle, but its simplicity made its grandeur, and 
the crowds which followed the bier from the hillside 
and the seashore across the city to the mausoleum 
were worthy of his memory. There was no music, 
there were no troops, there were no cannon, no 
priests, no banners, no muffled drums, no war-horses 
slowly pacing under plumed riders and broidered 
saddle-cloths : there were only the people of Helios, 
in thousands and tens of thousands, following the 
plain deal coffin in dead silence, for the Hymn of 
Eos had been again forbidden by special proclama- 
tion, and the people would have no other. 

From far and near, from maritime village and 
mountain hamlet, the men and women of Helianthus 
flocked in masses through the gates, and swelled the 
populace of the various quarters of the town ; a 
torrent of multi-coloured hues, of silent but im- 
passioned life, choking down in silence in their throats 
the forbidden chant which rose to the lips of all. 

The troops were shut up in their barracks ready 
for any emergency ; strong forces of guards, and 
police, and mounted carabineers, were drawn up along 
the line of route ; the gates and the windows of the 

380 


chap, xxiv HELIANTHUS 


381 


palaces of the aristocracy and the plutocracy were all 
closed, but in no sign of respect, only out of a great 

As the funeral passed through the Square of the 
Dioscuri under the lofty palms, by the falling foun- 
tains, Othyris rode out of the courtyard of his 
palace and placed himself beside the bier ; he was in 
full uniform ; he wore crape upon his arm ; the sun 
shone on the fairness of his face and hair. 

An immense shout of welcome and applause 
greeted the courage of his act. 

He checked the tumultuous cheering with a gesture, 
entreating and commanding silence ; then rode on 
beside the coffin at a slow pace, the smothered out- 
cries of homage and admiration rolling down the air 
like the hoarse mutterings of a storm. The solemnity 
of the errand on which they went, the impression of 
awe and repentance which was on the souls of the 
masses that day alone restrained the populace of 
Hellos from proclaiming their will to have him as 
their lord, to be ruled by him and by him alone. 

The palace of Kantakuzene was but a few dozen 
yards distant from the Square of the Dioscuri. The 
dense crowds passed under its walls. From a case- 
ment, hidden by growing plants climbing over its 
grating, Kantakuzene looked out on the throng and 
saw the solitary rider on the black horse. 

‘ Good heavens, what imprudence ! ’ he murmured. 

‘ If I had dreamed of it, I would have kept him in 
by force ! ’ 

In his horror and apprehension the sweat of fear 
and of amaze stood in chill drops upon his forehead. 
Never, he knew, never would John of Gunderode 
pardon either Elim or himself. 


382 HELIANTHUS chap. 

The bier and the rider beside it passed out of 
sight down the street, soon hidden by the projecting 
balconies, and sculptures, and lamp-irons of its 
ancient houses. The crowds continued long to tramp 
through the street, until the last stragglers had passed. 
There is no sound so ominous as the passing of a 
multitude. As he heard it, Kantakuzene bowed his 
head on his hands and sighed wearily. This demon- 
stration might close peacefully, or it might end in 
bloodshed ; but whatever might be its issue he knew 
that the germs of a great peril were in it. All the 
citizens of Helios seemed to be massed along the 
route of the funeral procession, and the whole work- 
ing population of the city was abroad ; at the win- 
dows of their dwellings only the aged and the very 
young, left at home, looked out in impatient en- 
thusiasm ; the white marble dust rose in the air in 
dense clouds, the tread of the many thousands of feet 
was like the marching of an army. From the Gate 
of Olives to the opposite hill on which the mausoleum 
stood was a distance of three miles and more ; there 
was not a foot of it which was not occupied. Such 
movements have, as a rule, but little worth ; populous 
cities send forth their masses to welcome a despot, 
to cheer a general, to gape at a bridegroom, to ap- 
plaud the legions who return from an unjust war. 
But these multitudes were repentant ; they were as 
sons who mourned a father they had long neglected ; 
there were spontaneity, sincerity, remorse, in their 
souls, and their hearts beat in the unison of a pas- 
sionate, if an evanescent, adoration of a dead god. 

It was towards the close of the warm and fragrant 
afternoon that Ilia Illyris sat beside the stone well 


XXIV 


helianthus 


383 

T°" gSt , th , e “lumbines and roses, wondering how 

he escort a of g r°h ne; I ^ ^ ° r Strife had been 
tne escort of the plain pinewood coffin which had 

peopled He? 7 T at da >'break by the 

people of Helios. Janos had not returned. 

bhe looked up as she heard a step on the drv 

Sw Oth^ Path WHkh ^ ^ to her a "d £ 

He had changed his clothes in the citv, and had 

sdf f± S ,s * T he H d be “ “ r™ him 
sell from the enthusiasm of the crowds, when the 
bron« gates of , he House of , he 

coffin of!^* h, "" S °P“ ed “ ‘I* 

He stood in the shadows of the boughs at a little 
distance from her ; his head was uncovered, he looked 
pale and tired, for he had eaten nothing all day • his 
ears were deaf with the noise of the crowds, his eyes 
were hot and dry with the dust of the streets ; but 
" aS P r , oud the things which he brought her, 

£? a,r p,orc to h ' r his 

‘ All has passed well and with order,’ he said to 
her. I went with the people to the mausoleum. 
He lies with the great men of Helianthus; the 
greatest of them all. 

His voice was low and broken from fatigue and 
from emotion. 6 

She rose and went towards him in the warm amber 
Ig t of the late sunset with a sweet and gracious 
look upon her face, and she put out her hand to him 
with a gesture of which queens might have envied 
the dignity and the grace. 

I thank you, sir/ she said, in a softer tone than 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


3 8 4 


he had ever heard from her. c I did you injustice ; 
I ask your pardon.' 

Othyris bowed very low and touched her hand 
timidly with his lips as though she were his suzerain 
and he a vassal. He did not speak. All words ap- 
peared to him too poor, too trivial. 

c I thank you, sir,' she said again. c You have 
done a noble action.’ 

She sat down again on the old marble seat against 
the wall of the house as he remained standing ; his 
emotion was great, and he was afraid lest by a word 
too warm, a glance too ardent, he might scare away, 
like a frightened bird, her first movement of con- 
fidence and sympathy. 

c You know the English poet’s line,’ she said: 
c cc After life's fitful fever he sleeps well." That 
Platon Illyris sleeps well, in honoured sepulchre, and 
in sight of the people, is due to you, to you alone. 
I thank you ; I thank you infinitely.’ 

c The Pantheon was his right. The instinct of 
the people told them that.’ 

‘ Yes ; but they could have had no power to im- 
pose their will upon the Crown had it not been for 
you.’ 

He could not contradict what was obvious. 
c I hope it has not caused dissension between you 
and your father ? ’ 

‘ There is seldom anything else between the King 
and myself.’ 

£ Who induced the King to yield ? ’ 
c Kantakuzene.’ 

c Kantakuzene ! A renegade ! A turn-coat ! A 
man all things to all men ! ’ 

c A successful politician — yes.’ 


XXIV 


HELIANTHUS 


3 8 5 


Is it true that you said you would not live un- 
less your promise to the people were kept bv the 
Crown ? ’ 

c Who told you that ? ’ 

c Janos went down into the city, and he heard it 
there/ 

I cannot tell how any one could know it. It was 
said only to Kantakuzene/ 

‘ But it is true ? ’ 

Yes, it is true. How could I have lived dis- 
credited and dishonoured in your sight, and in the 
sight of my nation ? ’ 

A radiance of admiration, of sympathy, and of 
comprehension lightened her face. 

‘You should have been an Illyris!’ she said, in 
that pride of race which is so far above mere vanity 
or egotism. 

Othyris smiled involuntarily. No other woman 
would have spoken of her race as greater than his 
own. 

‘ Would that I had been ! ’ he murmured. ‘ I 
should be nearer to you/ 

He regretted the last words as soon as he had 
uttered them, for they chilled and alarmed her, though 
she took no notice of them ; but the warmer, more 
sympathetic, more intimate manner she had hitherto 
shown was frozen back into her usual reserve. 

‘ She thinks I take advantage of her gratitude/ 
he reflected ; and he regretted having thus alarmed 
her. 

They were both silent. The sun shone on the 
old cream-hued marble of the house wall, the green 
trails of the Madonna’s herb growing in its fissures, 
the silvery leaves of the olives, the fair classic 


3 86 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


profile of Ilia Illyris and the sombre black folds of 
her gown. Othyris stood and looked at her with all 
his soul speaking in his eyes ; but her eyes were 
looking downward on the rough grass at her feet and 
she did not see, because she did not wish to see, what 
his would have told her. 

She was distressed though she did not show any 
distress. She was divided between her gratitude to 
him and her fear of him — gratitude for his acts, fear 
of his passion. What he had done appealed to her 
in the strongest way ; to her sympathy, to her family 
pride, to her admiration of heroic and patriotic con- 
duct ; but she was afraid of the feeling for herself 
which it was impossible to ignore, even though it 
had been as yet scarcely crystallised into words. 

The Gunderode had ever been fatal to the Illyris. 
He who had been carried to his grave in the Pan- 
theon had rued the day when he had trusted in the 
monarch by whose side he now lay in the community 
of death. All her heart went out to the young man 
who stood before her, for his devotion to the dead, 
for his courage in great peril, for his loyalty to his 
word and to the people ; but in his relations to 
herself she doubted him, she shrank from him, she 
feared him, she saw in him only the treachery of his 
family to hers. 

She rose from the seat under the house wall, and 
moved towards the archway of the entrance. 

c Believe me, sir,’ she said in a low tone, her eyes 
still looking away from him, c I feel most deeply, 
most gratefully, all that you have done for the sake 
of the dead and in the defence of the populace ; I 
admire your actions, I respect them, I honour them ; 
but, as I have told you before now, there can be no 



















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XXIV 


HELIANTHUS 


387 


friendship between you and me. Even for you to 
come here, now that he is no more with me, is not 
possible. There is a gulf that must ever yawn 
between us. You have done your utmost to atone 
for your grandsire’s crimes ; but they were written 
in blood, the blood of the people, and the blood of 
my fathers. Nothing can wash them out — for me. 
You regret them, but you cannot efface them by any 
courage or nobility of your own. I have said so to 
you many times.’ 

‘ You have,’ said Othyris, and his colour changed 
from red to white, and white to red, in the intensity 
of his emotions and his indignation. c But you have 
no right to make the living bear the burden of the 
faults of the dead. If you honour my actions in the 
last two days, you must at least respect me. You 
cannot admire a man’s conduct, and despise himself.’ 

£ I have never said that I despised you. All your 
public conduct would impose respect on any one. 
Had it not done so, he would never have received 
you here. But between you and me there can never 
be any friendship, any intimacy. If the past were 
not set between us, the present would render it 
impossible. I am poor, alone, and of no account. 

I cannot receive you here now that my great-grand- 
father is dead.’ 

£ Why ? ’ 

£ Why ? Is it necessary to say ? ’ 

£ I see no reason. You attach no importance to 
royalty or to rank, therefore why set them as a 
barrier between you and one who, equally with 
yourself, sets no store on them ? ’ 

£ I attach no weight to them ; but the world 
attaches much. You are what you are; it cannot 


3 88 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


be altered. And I, being, what I am, cannot, I 
repeat, receive you here.' 

c You mean that you will not? * 
c Well, put it so. I will not/ 

c You are cruel — and ’ 

He was about to say ungrateful, but his generosity 
kept the reproach unspoken. She answered the 
unuttered thought. 

c Oh, no/ she murmured, and the melody of her 
voice faltered. ‘ I am not cruel, nor am I thankless. 
If the nation have honoured him at the last it is due 
to you, to you alone. If I believed still in the God 
of my childish prayers, I w^ould pray for you day and 
night. But you are what you are : you are a son of 
the King ; you are Elim of Gunderode ; there are 
only two lives between you and the throne. I am 
poor and alone, though I have enough for my house 
and for my bread. You must see, sir, that there can 
be no friendship between us. If you persist in 
coming here you will drive me away from the only 
place that I can regard as home/ 

There was a pathetic supplication in her voice 
from which the coldness and the pride had passed 
away, and in her eyes there was a mist as of unshed 
tears. He saw that she spoke in entire sincerity, and 
not without pain to herself ; he was touched, but he 
was not convinced ; his anger was disarmed, but his 
desire was only increased. He felt that he could not, 
at such a moment of bereavement, say all that it 
was upon his lips to say, but he did not for a 
moment accept her decision and her dismissal. It 
was upon his lips to cry to her : c I love you ! I love 


XXIV 


HELIANTHUS 


389 


He had profaned love too often to be willing to 
speak of it in the same breath with her name. He 
scarcely dared to let his thoughts dwell on it, for the 
family of the Illyris had been already too deeply 
wronged by his own House for him to dream of 
•r rt ~. er wr ° n g 5 an d what else, save wrong, could love 
it offered from him to her be deemed ? 

He had been received at that house by the hero 
of Argileion and Samaris with forgiveness for the 
offences of his race, and had come thither in frank 
good faith. Every law of honour and of conscience 
forbade him to abuse the reception given to him by 
one, once so great, and in old age so utterly helpless, 
as had been Platon Illyris. 

Receiving no reply or promise from him she said, 
almost in supplication : — 

‘ Sir sir — surely you must see for yourself that 
you must never come here now that he can no 
longer receive you ? Your visits were to him. They 
must cease now he is no more/ 


He was silent and mortified. Here was the only 
place where his presence was not welcome, his remem- 
brance coveted, his visit received with gratitude, 
pride, and emotion. 

‘Why are you so harsh to me?’ he said, after 
waiting in vain to hear some softening word. 

‘ Harsh ! she said with some impatience. c There 
is no question of harshness, or kindness, that I am 
aware. It is obvious that you have no reason to 
come now that he can neither hear you nor speak to 
you/ 

‘ It was not wholly for him/ murmured Elim, and 
the hesitation and timidity of a boy of eighteen came 
over him, and he paused in confusion. 


39 ° 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


‘ Can I be of no use to you in any way ? * he 
added, humbly, fearing he had offended her. 

£ None, sir/ she answered. c You can only do us 
harm/ 

‘ That is a cruel answer. Some power at least I 
have/ 

‘You have too much power. You are one of the 
elect of the earth. You must see that now he is no 
more you must not cross this threshold/ 

‘Why? Whatever power I possess is but your 
humblest servant. Whatever you might bid me do, 
I would do/ 

‘ I bid you go, and not return. Obey me since 
you have promised to obey/ 

‘ Why ? Why should we be strangers to each 
other? Why live as though we were enemies?’ 

‘ Because your race and mine can have no 
bond of friendship. He told you so, again and 
again/ 

‘ Why am I to suffer for the sins, or the falseness, 
of my forefathers ? The crime against Illyris was the 
crime of Theodoric alone/ 

‘ It lies on you. It lies on every member of your 
House/ 

‘Had the nation no share in it?’ said Othyris 
with reproach. ‘ If the people had been true to their 
liberator, my family would have been powerless 
against him/ 

‘ That may be trtie/ she said slowly. ‘ But can a 
dog defend his master if the dog has been chained 
and muzzled ? Helianthus was that dog. Who 
chained him ? Who muzzled him ? ’ 

Othyris was silent. To reason with her was 
useless ; to tempt, to persuade, to entreat her were 


XXIV 


HELIANTHUS 


39 1 


equally in vain ; unless her own heart turned traitor 
to her creed no other assailant would move her. 

She looked at him with her clear, calm, meditative 
eyes, and there was no emotion in them ; no timidity 
— none of the fear of a virginal passion. She was 
always the goddess of those classic groves, aloof from 
all mortal weakness. 

‘ Go ! ’ she said to him, not harshly but with 
firmness. £ Go, sir. You have many duties, many 
interests, many friends. Forget Aquilegia. Remem- 
ber only that you have done a noble action in defence 
of a great memory. Your own conscience should be 
enough reward. Farewell.’ 

She would not have been human had she been 
wholly insensible to the power she possessed ; but 
she was without vanity, she was unspoiled by contact 
with other women, and her antagonism to the reigning 
race was far stronger in her than any personal feeling 
She hated their past : she hated their present. 

A great offence rose up in Othyris for a moment ; 
caste, usage, privilege, consciousness of pure purpose, 
and inherited instincts of command, all flushed his 
veins with anger, and made him for one instant ready 
to turn his back on her for ever : to leave her to any 
fate, to tear his adoration of her out of his heart and 
memory. Was it possible that any woman could 
dare speak so to him, a Prince of Helianthus ? 

She did not even look at him or wait to see the 
effect of her words. She went up the narrow wooden 
stairs in the light of the morning, opened the door of 
her chamber, and went within. She did not draw the 
bolt, for she knew that he would not follow her. 
He held her in too high esteem. He was too true 
a gentleman. 


HELIANTHUS chap, xxiv 


39 2 

He was very pale and his breath came fast and 
painfully ; he had been dismissed and wounded ; he 
felt lower than the lowest of the naked men crawling 
through the surf below on the shore, with the creels 
of rotted seaweed on their bowed backs. 

A woman’s unkindness penetrates, hurts, rankles, 
festers in the heart of a man, as no outrage from one 
of his own sex can do; and Ilia was the one living 
being out of the whole multitudes of earth who had 
the power to wound Othyris ! 

Ilia that evening sat at the barred casement of her 
chamber and looked at the moon, nearly at its full, 
rise beyond the olive-trees. The solitude and the 
solemnity of death were still in the silence of the 
house. The sense of a vanished presence, of some- 
thing for ever lost and gone, were in the quiet place ; 
the scent of the old books blent with the odour of the 
wild-flowers; if men spared the place, the books 
would last and the flowers bloom through centuries ; 
Illyris alone was gone, never to return. 

A great sense of loneliness was upon her. She had 
leaned on his wisdom as on a staff which would never 
fail ; and now the staff was broken. 


CHAPTER XXV 

When Othyris reached his palace that evening he 
found himself under arrest, and confined to his 
rooms. He was not surprised. Arrest had been a 
frequent punishment, received by him for lesser 
offences than his had been that day. The guard 
had been doubled round his palace, and the troops 
were still confined to barracks. 

The governor of the city and other great func- 
tionaries, civil and military, were perpetually ex- 
changing consultations with each other and passing 
to and from the Soleia. 

One Ministry had fallen ; another had not yet 
been formed ; it was such an interregnum as the 
King would willingly have had continued indefinitely, 
since it left him sole lord and arbiter of current 
events, within the limits of that Constitution which 
galled and fretted him so sorely in the free exercise 
of his will. 

# That under his rule, during his reign, a popular 
victory such as the day had seen should have been 
possible was the most acute mortification to him. 
The cypher telegrams of Julius’s on the event, in 
their sarcastic condolence and their ironical sympathy, 
were like gad-flies in a raw wound. Julius was no 
doubt wondering why Helios was not placed in a 
393 


394 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


state of siege. John of Gunderode knew that he 
must seem a poor creature to his dominant nephew. 

When the population of Helios became aware 
of Elim’s arrest it was indignant, and willing, had it 
known how, to rescue and revenge him. The city 
was in ferment. Angry groups discussed and con- 
demned the arrest until far into the night. Work 
was neglected ; in the docks and many other places 
it was entirely suspended. Strong measures were 
taken by the authorities to prevent any violence or 
harangues, or meetings of any sort. Most of the 
shops and places of refreshment or of amusement 
were closed. The palaces of the aristocracy and 
plutocracy were shuttered and their iron gates were 
bolted and locked. The guard around and within 
the Soleia was doubled, and the troops were, as on 
the previous day, confined to barracks ready for any 
emergency. The aspect of Helios was that of a city 
in a state of siege or on the eve of revolution. 

But John of Gunderode was not alarmed; he 
knew the Helianthines. They were like women, 
loud and excessive in their emotions, but in action 
weak and hesitating. Their stomachs knew not the 
beef and beer of the Guthones. It was a wave of re- 
membrance, of reverence, of repentance, which swept 
through the land from the Mare Magnum to the Alps 
of Rhaetia. It might die down like a fire of straw ; 
it might live on till it burnt all that was opposed to it. 
No one could say; but it was alight, and the King’s 
son had held the torch to the tow. The King 
consulted no one. He was the father of the offender, 
the sovereign of the country, the head of the army. 
Othyris was in a triple sense guilty towards him. He 
caused a court-martial to be held pro forma , but its 


XXV 


HELIANTHUS 


395 


sentence was a foregone conclusion — a foreseen and 
dictated condemnation. The crime of the King’s 
second son was, in the judgment of the King himself, 
or the military caste, of the conservative party, of the 
Court at home and all other Courts abroad, utterly 
unmentionable and unpardonable. 

. Jt was a sin against the sacred manes of all the 
kings who had ever lived and ruled ; every imperial 
and monarchical sentiment in the world had been 
outraged by his public escort through the city of the 
funeral of Illyris.. Even Kantakuzene dared not 
defend such an action. 

When asked why he had not endeavoured to 
obtain, the royal assent to his escort of the funeral, 
Othyris answered that there had been no time to’ 
seek it; also that he did not think his accompaniment 
of the bier was one which required any permis- 
sion from the Crown. It had been an inoffensive 
testimony of a perfectly natural union of sentiment 
on his part with the people of Helios. 

c You must be aware, sir,’ said the President, 
c that such an act on your part was on the contrary 
most offensive to the Crown.’ 

‘I do not see the offence,’ said Othyris. c Neither 
on my own part, nor on that of the populace, was 
there any disrespect shown to my father or to the 
State.’ 

c What, sir ! Not the burial of a revolutionist in 
the same temple with Theodoric the Great ! ’ 

c They fought side by side once. Of the two it is 
not Platon Illyris who has the lesser title to a place 
in that classic sepulchre/ 

A murmur of horror from the officers assembled 
in council followed this speech. The words would 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


39 6 


have been shocking from any one, but from a prince 
of the blood ! 

‘ Let me caution you, sir, such speeches as yours 
cannot assist your defence, they must increase your 
punishment.' 

‘ That will be as it may.' 

‘You are wofully mistaken, sir, as a prince, as a 
son, as an officer.' 

‘It is inevitable that a military tribunal should 
think so.' 

Those who sat in judgment were perplexed. Any 
other person making use of such speech as his could 
have been shot. With Othyris they could not take 
so severely swift and simple a solution. 

If they could only have bent him to any measure 
of retractation, of admission of offence, of regret, of 
apology, their course of action would have been 
clearer to them. 

The examination lasted long and was full of 
wearisome repetition. Othyris did not alter or in- 
crease his replies either in matter or in manner. 
He had done that which he had done out of respect 
for the dead man, and out of consciousness that his 
own House had never shown either respect or grati- 
tude to the great patriarch by whom Helianthus had 
been freed from the foreigner. 

‘Platon 111 yris,’ he replied, ‘was the liberator of 
Helianthus.' 

‘ Sir, you forget your great and revered ancestor.' 

‘ I forget nothing.’ 

‘ Do you consider, sir, that a prince of your House 
should have publicly proclaimed his sympathy with 
a republican ? ' 

‘ I consider that my family, beyond all others. 


XXV 


HELIANTHUS 


39 7 


owes gratitude and honour to the victor of Argileion 
and of Samaris.' 

c He was a rebel against your illustrious ancestor.' 

c He had full right to be so, if he were.' 

c That is strange language on your part, sir, being 
who you are.' 

£ Being who I am, I am bound to speak the truth.' 

To most of those present it seemed that a mili- 
tary execution in the courtyard of the fortress would 
have been the most wise and the most just end to an 
unpardonable scandal. But what would the people 
of Helianthus, the citizens of Helios, think of such 
a sentence passed by a father on a son, by the head 
of a nation on the favourite of that nation ? 

They felt that if a hair of the head of this rebel 
were touched, the city certainly, and probably after 
it the country, would rise in arms. True, Elim 
being dead would be powerless to profit by their 
rising; but before now dead men have had more 
sway than their living foes. 

Three days went by without any news reaching 
those of Aquilegia from the city. Janos was for- 
bidden by his lady to go down to the gates, for she 
was afraid that his ignorance and his excitement might 
get him into trouble there, in his pride at the triumph 
of his late master. No one came ; the few necessities 
of life were at hand on the soil and in the cupboard ; 
there was less need than ever for any expenditure to 
meet their simple wants. Therefore nothing was 
known by any one there of the arrest of Othyris until 
the fourth day, when, as it was market-day, Janos 
could not be kept on the land, as he had produce to 
sell and calves to fetch home. He returned late, 


398 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


greatly distressed and agitated, consigning the calves 
to Philemon. 

c The great lord is being sent away/ said Janos, 
when he came up to the house. 

‘ What do you mean ? ' asked Ma’ia, who was 
spinning by the well. 

‘ Our prince who saved Philemon/ replied Janos. 
c They sent him away, to keep him away for years 
and years, that the people may not see him. They 
were all talking of it in the streets. The King, his 
father, wills it so. The King is jealous of him. The 
people are very angry.' 

‘Are you sure of what you say ? ' 

‘Sure? Ay, I am sure. A score of mouths 
yelled it at me. The city is angry.' 

‘ But why does the King do this ? What is his 
offence ? ' 

‘ They say it is because he put our Master in the 
House of the Immortals. That made the King hot 
against him.' 

‘That is like enough,' said Maia gravely, and she 
resumed her spinning. 

Ilia came towards them, from the stone bench by 
the porch where she had been seated ; she had heard 
the words they spoke. 

‘ Is he to go into exile ?' she asked. Her face was 
very pale. 

‘ What is exile ? ' said Janos. ‘ To go out of the 
country ? ' 

‘ Yes.’ 

‘That I do not know. I think not.' 

‘ Why did you not ask more ? ’ 

‘ The streets were like hives of swarming bees ; 
they dumfounded me. Besides, I had to go to the 


XXV 


HELIANTHUS 


399 


end of the world to fetch the bull calves. But this 
1 heard from a dozen mouths in the morning, and 
tnen again as I brought the calves through the citv : 
he is to be shut up far away/ 

1 For what he did the other day ? ’ 

‘Ay, for that. So they say.’ 

Ilia was silent. 

‘Some said the people should rise,’ added the 
peasant ; ‘ but others said no, they were not ready, 
and the King is strong/ 

‘ The King is very strong/ muttered Mai'a. 

Ilia said nothing; she went away under the shade 
of the olive branches. The sun was setting, a dusky 
gold shining through the grey shadows of the great 
trees. She walked on alone through their solitudes ; 
what she had heard smote her conscience with a 
sense of unworthiness and coldness ; he suffered for 
her and hers, and he had received scarcely a dry 
crust of gratitude. 7 

‘ And I scarcely thanked him. I closed the house 
to him/ thought she; and the tears stood in her 
eyes and blinded her to the sunlight, and to the 
blaze of the distant dome of gold under which 
Platon Illyris and Theodoric lay side by side, 
their enmities forgot, their valour alone remembered 
in Helios. 

At sunrise she sent Mai'a down into the city to 
hear if the tidings brought by Janos were confirmed. 
The woman returned before noon and said that they 
were true. All the people of Helios were agitated 
by them ; some wished for a demonstration before 
the Soleia, but the hours slipped away and nothing 
was done ; only the number of the city guards and 
carabineers was doubled. It was not known whether 


400 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


the Duke of Othyris had already gone, but it was 
generally believed that he had taken his departure 
by a night train ; rumours as to the length of his 
term of banishment were various, and always greatly 
exaggerated. The populace were incensed, but help- 
less for want of a controlling hand. 

As Ma'ia spoke, the noon sun struck the golden 
dome of the Pantheon where it stood amidst its 
cypress groves on the other side of the bay. Through 
a break in the woods it was visible across the water, 
the dome shining in the meridian light. Othyris 
had opened the gates of the Temple to Platon 
Illyris, and had been chastised for the act as for a 
crime. 

That morning a letter was given by the common 
postman to the boy Philemon, as he worked in the 
lower woods. 

‘Take that to your mistress/ said the letter- 
carrier. He took it to her. 

It was a note of only a few lines in the hand- 
writing of Othyris. It said briefly that he had been 
condemned to twelve months' detention in a fortress, 
and added : — 

c I beg you not to be distressed. I am proud to have 
merited such punishment in so just a cause . Accept the 
homage of your humble servant .’ 

It was signed merely c Elim/ 

The note dropped from Ilia’s hand on the cushion 
of the lace at which she worked. The shock was 
great to her. She was conscious that she had not 
deserved from him so much devotion or such total 
forbearance from reproach. A year of his life was 


XXV 


HELIANTHUS 


lost through her ! She could never give that year 

Sef H° U U T 1 u Sl0W> l0ng ’ Cruel ho “ rs would drag 

their dull length away, and be for ever dead and 
buried like a sunless day. 

‘ I am sorry - oh, I am sorry ! ’ she murmured ; 
the tears swam in her eyes, an intense sense of her 
debt to him and of his sacrifice to her filled her with 
regret which was well-nigh remorse. She could 
never give him back this year of his youth which he 

^h S r uT to s P end in captivity for her and hers, 
one felt humbled and ashamed. 

That night she could not sleep. In the morning 
she sent Janos to the market in the city. 

‘Bring me news of what has happened,’ she said 
to him. He brought her news, with sobs of rage in 
his chest, and brown hairy hands clenched 

‘ He is gone,’ he said. ‘They have sent him 
away into prison. It was done at night all secretly. 
He is there in the fortress of Constantine. The 

beTone' 6 ’ SheCP ’ cravens - The y let this thing 


In the fortress of Constantine ! Where Theodoric 
had confined Illyris ! Truly he had paid with his 
person for the offences of his forbears, for the false- 
hood of his race. 

c What shall we do, O daughter of Illyris ? ’ cried 
Janos. c Command, I will give my life.* 

£ can d° nothing, my friend/ she answered. 

We are weak as water, you and I.’ 

But the people ? They would be with us, and 
for him/ 


Platon Illyris lay five years in the casemates of 
that prison, and the people let him lie. What can 
they do against the metal mouths of cannon ? Pray, 

2D 


402 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. XXV 


Janos ; you believe in prayer. That is all that you 
can do/ 

Janos swore a great oath on the names of saints 
and pagan gods, who were all one to him. 

c My arm is strong. It should be broken from 
shoulder to wrist for him. He gave me back 
Philemon/ 

c If ever the time come, yes, do not spare your- 
self. But now you can do nothing. The King is 
strong and cruel/ 

c Those lads missed the King. I should not miss 
him. My knife is sure. In a sure hand a knife is 
better than a bullet/ 

c Hush ! The Master, were he here, would bid 
you do no evil that good may come, nor would Prince 
Elim wish for vengeance/ 

Janos, his bronzed face wet with sweat and black 
with passion, slunk away like a dog forbidden to 
avenge a friend. Ilia went within. 

The dove which had been often fondled by 
Platon Illyris flew to her and stroked her cheek with 
its caressing beak. 

c O bird of peace, you are no bird of ours ! * she 
cried, in passion. c The Illyris were men of war. 
Alas that I, a woman, and alone, cannot lift their 
sword, cannot lead their people ! ’ 


CHAPTER XXVI 

Detention for life in a fortress would not have 
seemed too much severity in the esteem of the King. 
But with the shrewd caution which was his most 
useful quality, he knew that the nation would not 
consent to any such sentence. The majority of the 
people admired the conduct of his second son ; and 
too great severity to the popular favourite would 
provoke dangerous resentment, perhaps even danger- 
ous action. He would have liked nothing better 
than to consign Elim for life to one of the great, 
grim, fortified buildings standing in desolate places of 
the hills or of the seashores, which served as military 
prisons, as barracks, or as powder-magazines, and 
where many a young officer, condemned by court- 
martial, had fretted his soul away in the dreary case- 
mates, amongst those rugged solitudes where no 
sound ever came except the tramp of sentinels, the 
grounding of arms, the lumbering of caissons, the 
cries of the sea-birds on the waters and the plovers 
on the moors. To one of these strongholds the 
King would willingly have consigned Othyris, and 
have left him there, to eat his heart out like the 
caged eagle he had pitied in his childhood. But he 
did not dare. 

Obstinate, insolent, disdainful of the people as he 
403 


404 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


was, John of Gunderode knew that such a course 
might lead to a revolt of the masses and to that 
exile of himself which Kantakuzene had pictured to 
himself with so much amusement. If he had been 
sure of his army he would not have hesitated; but 
he was not sure. 

His secret reports left him no doubt as to the 
increase of socialism and republicanism amongst his 
troops : the murrain in the patient flocks, of which 
his eldest son had spoken. So with his usual power 
of restraint upon his own desires, he limited himself 
to the mild punishment of the banishment of Othyris 
to one of his own estates, Hydaspe, for twelve 
months' time, in an honourable captivity with which 
public opinion could not presume to quarrel. 
Hydaspe was far away from the capital, on the 
south-east coast, in a sparsely-peopled province; 
Othyris would be removed from the sight of the 
populace of Helios, and the King considered that 
what a mob does not see it forgets. 

Kantakuzene greatly regretted the sentence ; but 
it was impossible for him to oppose a decision of the 
head of the State and the head of the army. He 
too knew the temper of the Helianthines. Removed 
from their sight, it was probable that Othyris would 
retain little place in their memories. They would 
not march across half the width of the country to his 
place of captivity in their tens of thousands and bring 
back in triumph to the capital the man they loved. 
They had not the grit in them to do that. His 
presence could move them to anything ; in absence 
he would be rarely remembered, or so their rulers 
thought. P ersonally Kantakuzene was much attached 
to him ; he felt the charm of an unselfish character 


XXVI 


HELIANTHUS 


405 


and of generous and exalted ideals ; but being now 
First Minister of the Crown, he could not but feel 
relieved from the extreme embarrassment which the 
presence of Othyris caused to him in Helios — an 
embarrassment which might increase perilously at 
any moment of public excitement. 

Kantakuzene was sincerely distressed, but he was 
in the midst of all the agitation, anxiety, and diffi- 
culty of forming his Cabinet, of apportioning the 
loaves and fishes between the numerous claimants, 
of endeavouring to disarm enmity, to confirm hesita- 
tion, to pass over friendship which might be safely 
slighted, to irritate none, to alienate none, and, 
above all, to remain sole master of the situation. 
At such a vital moment Kantakuzene had little 
thought to give even to one who so much interested 
him as the second son of the King. If he could 
have interfered successfully, he would have done so 
even to his own hindrance; but it was impossible 
for him to touch a question so delicate and personal, 
to interfere in a matter which was exclusively at 
once a military and a family question for the judg- 
ment and the action of the sovereign alone. Kanta- 
kuzene consoled himself with the reflection that 
Othyris would doubtless be pardoned as soon as 
some months of his punishment had been endured, 
and in the agreeable sense of dominance and of 
success which came to him as he presided at his 
first Cabinet Council, he had not much time or 
inclination to give to the prisoner of Hydaspe. 
c He is quixotic ! He is quixotic! ’ said Kantakuzene 
to others, with a sigh. ‘ It is a fine defect, but it 
is a defect ! * 

Men have to take the world as it is, and live in 


40 6 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


it as best they may. It is not quite the bear-garden 
that satirists say, but neither is it quite the rose- 
garden which poets picture. Kantakuzene, who in 
his early time had gathered his roses, now preferred 
to tame the bears. Perchance Othyris would do so 
also in the future. 

It was characteristic of the King that he did not 
select iEnothrea, which was beloved by Elim and 
beautiful in every way, as the estate on which his 
son was to pass a year of solitude. He chose 
Hydaspe, which was hot as a furnace in summer and 
cold as the North Pole in winter — a great mediae- 
val pile which had stood many sieges, standing on 
bare rocks which rose out of marshes and rice-fields, 
and which looked on a river which was a boiling 
torrent in winter and a bed of stones in the dry 
season. There was, indeed, the sea near at hand ; 
but it was separated by three miles of sand and 
quicksands from the fortress, and was a portion of 
the eastern waters on which a sail was rarely seen — 
a melancholy and landlocked bay, on which a red 
and rayless sun rose drearily in the canicular heats. 
It was not a portion of the inheritance from Basil, 
but had been bequeathed to Othyris by a cousin- 
german. It was a possession of little value, although 
of great extent and antiquity ; its revenues were 
always returned by him to the poor dwellers on the 
soil, chiefly workers in the rice-fields or in the 
dreary plains of maize, — people whose lot he could 
make less hard but could never render otherwise 
than melancholy; burnt up by the heat in one 
season, chilled by the blasts and frosts at another, 
getting up at every dawn to toil in the same furrows 


XXVI 


HELIANTHUS 


407 


and ditches, giving their sons to the cannon and the 
barracks, seeing their daughters naked to the thighs 
in the rice channels, living pell-mell in their conical 
huts, their wives dropping the fruit of their womb 
as ewes drop lambs by the roadside, seeing always 
the sun go down upon their hopeless labour which 
could never change. 

If Othyris had given his parole not to leave 
Hydaspe, he would not have been subjected to any 
form of surveillance. But he would not give it. 
Therefore his movements were watched continually, 
and there were sentries at all the doors and gates of 
the castle. The place was his indeed, but the will 
of another, not of himself, ruled there. He was 
not allowed either to have any boat, large or small, 
in the bay for any movement on the sea. It was 
imprisonment in all but name, and when he heard 
the tramp of the sentinels on the ramparts or the 
grounding of arms by the soldiers on the 
gateways, he realised that his freedom was as com- 
pletely lost for the time as any condemned convict’s. 
True, he was still owner of Hydaspe and still a 
prince of Helianthus, and the guards set over him 
all saluted as he passed and stood at attention so 
long as he was in sight ; but he was virtually and to 
all intents and purposes a captive, though an un- 
diminished deference and an elaborate ceremonial 
of etiquette still preserved to him the dignity of 
a rank which he hated, and which now, more 
than ever before, seemed to him an irony and a 
burden. 

So he devoured his soul in silence, and the heavy 
intense heat grew more painful, and evening after 
evening the red, rayless ball of the sun sank down 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


408 


behind the rocky ridges of the interior, and another 
joyless and useless day was dead. 

Ilia was three hundred miles away, in the green, 
shadowy Helichrysum hills, where the streams ran 
fresh and cool throughout the longest day. 

At any other time Othyris might not have disliked 
this dreary solitude, since it would have given him 
time for study, for art, for philosophy ; and he would 
have taken pleasure in putting on canvas the desolate, 
severe landscapes of this joyless province. But at 
the present moment the distance separating him from 
Aquilegia, his ignorance of what shape Ilia’s future 
might take, his fear that she might be molested or 
watched, the longing of a man in love to be near 
the object of his love, made his imprisonment, three 
hundred miles from Helios, almost as unbearable as 
if he had been sent to a convicts’ island in the 
distant sea which rolled away from those eastern 
shores of Helianthus to the still mysterious Orient. 
At times his obedience to his father’s commands 
seemed to him cowardly and unworthy ; at others he 
felt that he could not in duty, in honour, give the 
nation an example of insubordination to a man who 
was the head of the State as well as his father. 
Kantakuzene had said rightly that the second son of 
the King was not a revolutionist any more than he 
was a reactionist. People who believe in any 
extreme are satisfied with their faith and with them- 
selves ; but Othyris had not such consolation. He 
would have thought that he had erred if he had 
rebelled ; he feared that he was a coward because 
he obeyed. 

At times, indeed, he was tempted to escape. 
There was a close cordon of sentinels drawn round 


XXVI 


HELIANTHUS 


409 


tlMif r °? 7 P iIe of Hydaspe, but he believed 
. \ k' s .S ent]eme n would assist him and his guards 
shut their eyes to h.s secret departure. But even in 
tins his own scruples stood like incorruptible gaolers 
in his path. His flight would entail degradation 
and punishment on those who rendered it possible • 

even if he himself succeeded in gaining his liberty’ 

those who remained behind him would pay the price 
of it to one who never pardoned. Moreover if he 
were to remain in the country, he would be speedily 
retaken ; and if he were to leave the country what 
use would freedom be? He would be still farther 
from Aquilegia. 

There is no punishment so stupid or so stupefying- 
as captivity The strongest intellects feel its bitter 
narcotic dull their brain and corrode their energies 
A man stays happily on a half acre of ground when 
he stays on it by his own choice; but a principality 
is insupportable when the will of another forbids him 
to pass its confines. 


Othyris wrote to Ilia Illyris. 

It was an imprudence, but no man in love was 
ever prudent yet if his heart were tender and his 
years were few.. Moreover, he felt in her that pro- 
found trust which was inspired by the limpid serenity 
of her regard, the character of her thoughts, and 
the traditions of her lineage. An Illyris might be 
betrayed, but never could betray. 

His letter was not answered, but it was not 
returned. That was the utmost he had hoped for 
when he wrote. After an interval he wrote again ; 
he had never written in confidence before to any 
human being; it was a new and delightful outlet 
of his inmost thoughts. It was unwise, it was 


410 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


imprudent, it was dangerous ; but it was for those 
reasons an irresistible temptation to lay bare his 
inmost self to the one mind which was capable of 
sympathy with him. That he received no reply did 
not surprise or chill his ardour ; she could not have 
written to him without being something less than 
what he thought her, something lower than an 
Illyris should have been. He sent his letters by the 
common post, for if he had sent them by messengers 
he imagined that they would have been returned ; 
she would have taken alarm at such a correspondence. 
He hoped that coming, like house swallows, noise- 
lessly and familiarly, they would not cause her any 
apprehension. What is written enters the brain by 
the eyes, and perhaps penetrates more deeply than 
what is spoken and enters by the ears. 

The first of the letters which Ilia received from 
Othyris came from the town in the wallet of Janos 
with the bread and meat and other frugal fare. It had 
been given to him by a postman whom he had met on 
the shore. Ilia had no correspondence, as she had no 
friends except the nuns in the north, who never wrote, 
and the lace merchant, who wrote only on the receipt 
of work. The first letter from Othyris caused her 
extreme surprise and emotion. It was impossible to 
read its pages without belief in its sincerity. There 
was no possible cause to doubt the veracity of its 
expressions; and in its humility there was a contrast 
to the position of the writer which could not fail to 
touch the reader. Whether she would or no, Ilia 
could not resist the conviction that he meant most 
absolutely all he said. The letters did not alarm her, 
because though eloquent they were restrained, though 
ardent they were timid, though impassioned they were 


XXVI 


HELIANTHUS 


411 


reverent. They were the letters of a poet, not of a 
libertine. All that was best in him, all that was 
simplest, truest, most sensitive, most unhappy, was 
expressed in them ; the dross of the world and its 
vanities, and its passions was burned out of his 
soul as it spoke to hers ; he was a man who loved 
her and was no more, no less. She felt that his 
devotion to her was great, but she was too ignorant 
of the world to be able to measure the greatness 
of it. 

His adoration might be a passing caprice ; a 
passion inflamed by difficulty ; the wilful insistence 
of a spoilt child of fate ; but it was absolutely true. 

Ilia read the first of his letters once, twice, thrice, 
in the solitude of the lonely house ; then she wound 
it about a stone and dropped it from her window 
into the open well which was immediately beneath, its 
marble copings overgrown by stone crop and violet 
roots, its depths never troubled save by the old bronze 
pail let down by a cord at dawn and twilight. The 
stone smote the water, and she knew that the letter 
would in a brief time be soaked, obliterated, 
destroyed ; but words which could not die lived on 
in letters of fire in her remembrance. Each letter 
which he wrote her sank to the same watery grave. 
The peasants believed that the well went down, down, 
down to the very centre of the earth ; it seemed to 
her that there could be no better keeper of his secret 
than that dark, still, mysterious silence of an un- 
fathomed source. 

No vanity tempted her to keep his correspondence. 
The nature which is born free from vanity cannot be 
touched by it. 

Ilia had in her a great pride, the pride of race ; but 


412 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


such pride excludes vanity, as the true heir excludes 
the bastard. Letter after letter as the weeks went 
on succeeded each other and passed to that safe and 
silent grave, although it hurt her somewhat as though 
she slew a living thing to consign those ardent, tender, 
faithful words to the dumb, unmeasured depths which 
mirrored the stars and the planets and the moon-rays, 
and sometimes were white with showers of acacia 
blossoms, and sometimes moved and muttered 
sullenly, as seismic forces troubled their subterranean 
springs, but which never gave back what was given 
to them : whether written word, or faded flower, dead 
dragon-fly, or dropped plume of wounded kestrel, or 
tears which fell from a woman’s eyes as she leaned 
over its moss-grown parapet. 

It never occurred to Ilia to send the letters back to 
Othyris. It would have seemed to her too harsh and 
thankless an act to the man by whom the gates of 
the House of the Immortals had been opened to the 
body of Platon Illyris. So his letters did Othyris this 
service, that gradually he became in her sight the 
writer of them rather than aught else; no longer 
only the King’s son, the descendant of Theodoric of 
Gunderode, the hereditary enemy of the Illyris. In 
his presence she never forgot this ; but in his letters 
she did. In them,onehuman heart spoke toanother : 
that was all. The finest ruses of the studied seducer 
could not have served him better than did the simple, 
natural, and imprudent impulse which had moved him 
to write thus to her. 

Sentiment and sensuality were alike unknown to 
Ilia. Fear was a stranger to her temper. She was 
an Illyris. Something of the fire of Argileion, some- 
thing of the steel of Samaris had entered into her 


XXVI 


HELIANTHUS 


4i3 


blood ; she would have gone to the stake without a 
visible tremor ; she would have borne torture without 
a cry ; she was brave with the bravery transmitted to 
her by great men ; but, even as her young bosom 
was soft and flower-like, so her young heart had its 
weakness; her affections were dormant, but they 
were alive ; and as the bosom would fill with milk 
for the unborn child, so would the soul fill with the 
desire of unrealised joys. At her heart her youth 
was living as it was living in the light of her eyes, in 
the gloss of her hair, in the blue of her veins, in the 
roundness of her breasts : that sleeping youth which 
now awoke in her, tremulous, virgin, and afraid, but 
living. The well in which the letters of Elim were 
thrown was to her as the magic crystal in which the 
destiny of those who gazed therein was mirrored. 
She was afraid of what she saw, but she saw it. 
Their sentences seemed to stand out under the 
stars ; their words seemed echoed from the deep 
waters down in the earth. When the nightingales 
came with the irises and the windflowers they seemed 
to sing of them and of nothing else. 

She was calmer, stronger, more self-controlled, 
than most women of her years. She had dwelt 
within reach of the frost of a great lone soul, and 
it had chilled her youth in her ; she had been led 
to see as an old man, alone with his memories, had 
seen a world unworthy of and ungrateful to him. 


CHAPTER XXVII 

Othyris had been in solitude with the serried ranks 
of the stone hills between him and the world of men 
during six weary months, when the most unlooked- 
for stroke of fate opened the gates of his prison 
and called him back to life. Relays of mounted 
messengers, for there was no telegraph from any place 
to this remote spot, brought him an order from his 
father to come to the capital at once with all speed : 
his eldest brother was dangerously ill with angina. 

Theo ill ! Othyris could not credit it. Theo, the 
concentration of robust, self-satisfied, brutal and 
arrogant manhood, brought down to the same level 
as the beggar starved by the roadside, a conscript 
slain by a sunstroke on a march, a miner suffocated 
by the noxious fumes of a gas ! It was incredible. 
Rigid as a suit of armour, all-sufficient to himself as 
a deity, unbending, as a rod of iron, as sure of his 
own wisdom as a high priest of his, full of blood, of 
health, of authority, of food and wine, and muscular 
force — Theo, who believed in doctors as prophets, 
who had his residences deluged by disinfectants, who 
had always been sure that any one who was ill was so 
through his or her own fault, — Theo, whose health 
and strength were as great as those of prize-bull 

414 


on 


chap, xxvii HELIANTHUS 


4i5 

a pasture, had contracted a fatal malady : that of the 
angina. 

How he had contracted it, neither he nor his 
physicians and surgeons could tell. He remembered 
that a fly had flown down his throat as he had ridden 
through the home woods of one of his country-places 
to a slaughter of wild boars. The fly might possibly 
have brought the infection from some sick plebeian 
throat. Why would not common people all go into 
hospitals when they felt that anything was the matter 
with them ? There they were safe out of the way 
of others, and were useful to the Faculty as studies 
in corpore vili ! When he went home he could not 
eat any dinner ; he felt a brackish, nauseous taste in 
his mouth ; his throat was hoarse and uncomfortable ; 
he had a difficulty in swallowing. The Court 
physcians looked very grave. In the morning, to the 
consternation of his wife, his doctors, and his house- 
hold, the disease had fully declared itself; he was 
very ill ; his father was informed ; he became at once 
grotesque and piteous ; and death, which lends 
dignity and pathos to the most humble of creatures, 
stripped him bare of all his pompous greatness ; the 
butchered steer for which he had felt no compassion 
had gained from death more sorrowful nobility than 
he. At sunrise on the third day the great bell of 
St. Athanasius, tolling in long solemn notes, told 
the city of Helios that the heir to the throne was no 
more. 

His wife, who had been sacrificed to his tyrannies 
for fourteen sunless and imprisoned years, wept for 
him tears which she sincerely believed to be those 
of a sincere sorrow. 

His little daughters, who had never heard his step 


4i 6 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


without fear, or been summoned to his presence 
without apprehension, seeing their mother’s woe, 
were moved to an innocent and unconscious 
hypocrisy, and did not dare to whisper even to 
each other that a load as of lead was lifted off their 
childish souls. 

The shops were closed ; the muffled bells tolled ; 
the nobility and the bourgeoisie wore mourning ; 
the nation made believe that it was intensely shocked, 
intensely grieved, and mute out of fear ; but at its 
heart it was glad, and beyond all the populace was 
glad, that the heir to the throne was now the man it 
loved. 

The one mourner who felt as much regret as his 
stolid egotism could permit him to feel at any time 
was the King. Theo could have been trusted to 
continue all the traditions of the House of Gunde- 
rode ; Theo would never have yielded to maudlin 
sentiment or have stooped to popular dictation. 

Theo would have always slept booted and spurred. 
Under him, Helianthus would have been a careful 
copy in miniature of the great Guthonic empire, all 
its natural instincts stamped out of it, all its youth 
weighted with musket and haversack, all its free 
speech silenced, all its gaiety eclipsed, all its energies 
crushed under one order, — c Obey.’ 

When John of Gunderode realised that his second 
son was now unavoidably designated as his own 
immediate successor, he cursed the crookedness and 
crabbedness which makes circumstance jeer at mortals, 
and the undesired always become the inevitable. All 
his rigour, all his severity, all his acuteness, all his 
unmercifulness could not give him the power to 
shape and control the futurity of events. 


XXVII 


HELIANTHUS 


4i7 


The death of his heir-apparent was a greater blow 
to the King than any he had ever suffered except the 
enforced disarmament of his carefully prepared 
expedition for war in the Dark Continent. He 
could have trusted Theo implicitly to move on his 
own lines, to govern with his own measures, to follow 
his own example in all ways. With Theo the jagged 
bit would have pressed firmer on the sensitive mouth 
of the blood-mare, and the knotted whip would have 
cut wounds unceasingly on the nervous, trembling, 
and highly-bred creature. Theo would have walked 
in the^ steps of his father, and being without even his 
father’s measure of intelligence would have known 
no law but force. Under Theo, Helianthus would 
have been flogged on the road to Guthonic measures, 
Guthonic despotism, Guthonic brutality, and the 
strange Guthonic mixture of science and superstition 
and militarism would have been forced down the 
throat of the nation as a veterinary thrusts a medicine 
down the throat of a mare. The Guthonic empire 
had been the idol and ideal of the dead prince. But 
dead he was, in the prime of his early manhood ; 
and in his place stood Elim. 

Never in all his life before had John of Gunderode 
realised his own helplessness before the sledge- 
hammer of accident and the chances of mortality. 
His stubborn and unbending spirit realised for once 
its own impotency and incapacity. He could not 
save his eldest-born from the darkness of the tomb, 
and he could not alter the succession to the throne. 
His olive cheek grew greyer, his cold eyes harder, he 
smoked unceasingly, he scarcely ever spoke, and when 
he did he growled like an angry mastiff. For three 
days he scarcely ate; and in place of his burgundies 


418 HELIANTHUS chap. 

and bordeaux he drank brandy. Every one has his 
own way of mourning ; this was his. On the fourth 
evening he took up the menu card of his dinner and 
said the cook was a fool. On the fifth day he 
resumed his usual manner of life. But in his silent 
soul, tight shut as a bivalve on a rock, there was a 
bitter fury of regret, a sombre rage of useless 
sorrow. 

Hydaspe was at a distance of over twenty hours 
from the capital ; the railway only went half the way, 
and the rest of the journey was made by relays of 
horses. When Othyris reached Helios he was met 
by the tidings that his brother was dead. What he 
had most dreaded had come to pass. He himself 
was heir-apparent to the throne. 

He covered his face with his hands, and great 
tears forced themselves through his fingers. His 
sorrow was not for Theo, but for himself ; the 
burden of a power he abhorred seemed to lie on him 
like a rock rolled on to the breast of a living man. 
If only the little child had lived ! As he drove to 
his residence a murmur of delight and of respectful 
welcome rose from the crowds in the streets as they 
recognised his equipage, although the blinds were 
drawn. The cheers were checked immediately by the 
city guards, but the joy was in the hearts of the people. 
Their darling was now some day to be their ruler. 
c He will reign over us/ they thought, { and then 
there will be no more men to poke us in the ribs 
and drag us off to prison.' They, like the populace 
of every nation, imagined that a sovereign could do 
as he chose, and knew nothing of the innumerable 
threads which bind him like Gulliver. There was 


XXVII 


HELIANTHUS 


419 


a dense crowd gathered in the Square of the Dioscuri, 
and although the people could not see Othyris as his 
carriage passed rapidly between the gates of his 
palace, all the force of the Guards of Helios could 
not prevent a great muffled shout of welcome 
rolling down the air and reaching him in his 
chamber. 

c They care for me, they believe in me/ he 
thought. c Alas, poor people ! What more power 
to serve them shall I ever have than a gilded puppet 
on a carnival car ! * 

He could not feel regret for Theo ; he knew that 
Theo, as ruler, would have treated the people of 
Helianthus as a brute treats a timid colt or a sickly 
wife. Theo had prided himself on his hardness 
and recklessness, and nothing could have broken his 
backbone of steel except the grip of that skeleton- 
king who makes all other kings lie low as paupers. 

Othyris sorrowed for himself, on whose life fell the 
crushing glacier of impending power; he sorrowed 
for the nation who would look to him for so much 
and to whom he could give so little ; he sorrowed 
for the love of his life, more distant from him in 
his freedom and what the world deemed splendour 
than she had been in his captivity and solitude. 


The great bell of the Cathedral tolled with its 
deep brazen tongue, and all the chimes of churches 
and chapels resounded in echo, proclaiming the 
death of one for whom all the land of Helianthus 
was supposed to mourn as a mother the loss of her 
first-born. Ilia heard the swell of the great threnody 
as it rose upwards from the city below, joining the 
booming of the surf upon the shore. 


420 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c Who is dead ? ’ she asked Mai'a, startled and 
vaguely apprehensive. c Some one in high place/ 

‘ The eldest son of the King/ said the woman. 
c He died in the night of that fungus which grows 
in the throat/ 

c The Crown Prince dead ! Then ! * 

c It is the prince Elim who will reign/ said 
Maia. 

The waves of deep and solemn sound joined 
with the anger of a wind-driven sea on the beach 
below. 

c It is a cruel fate/ thought Ilia; she knew that 
to him of all others it would seem so. She remem- 
bered the words of Illyris: c If he lead the people 
or if he forsake the people, either way he will repent. 
To rule you must have iron in you. He has silver ; 
but silver will not make a sword-blade/ 

All night long the bells, great and small, tolled 
all over the country, in cities and townships and 
hamlets, in lonely churches on bare hillsides, and in 
monasteries by lakes and streams ; and in the chapels 
of feudal castles, and on the solitary shores by the 
sea, from the Mare Magnum to the Rhaetian moun- 
tains, the tongues of bronze told all the land that 
the heir to the throne was dead. But in the silent 
heart of Helianthus there was no sorrow; there was 
only gladness, mute and timid gladness, hiding like 
a hunted hare, and rejoicing because the man they 
loved would one day or another rule over them. In 
their ignorance and their credulity the people believed 
that he would change the whole face of the country, 
set a barn of plenty beside every poor man’s hearth, 
lift the musket and the knapsack from every strip- 


XXVII 


HELIANTHUS 


421 


ling s back, and make the golden corn grow on every 
stony plain. In their ignorance they could not tell 
that in the kingdom of men individual character 
can change little in the lot of the multitude or in 
the burdens borne by them. Though Solomon in 
all his glory, or Trajan in all his justice, were to 
reign ^in this actual time, he could not alter by 
a hair’s breadth, by a gramme’s weight, the pressure 
of poverty, the disparity of fates, the irony of 
circumstance, the brutality of war, the satire of 
success, the vast misery of the majority. But the 
people do not know that. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 

Othyris had no sleep that night. He felt like a 
man who lies pressed down under a rock which has 
fallen on him, leaving him breath and brain to suffer, 
but with no power to rise and move. 

With the change of position went such liberty and 
such privacy as he had hitherto enjoyed. His life 
henceforward belonged entirely to others. He had 
never seriously feared the possibility of his own future 
reign. His eldest brother, risks of sport apart, had 
seemed a man certain of long life, as he had always 
been of health and strength. When he had thought 
of his own possible accession it had been with little 
apprehension of such a fate becoming ever a reality. 

It was but half a year ago that he had heard the 
same outcries of popular affection rise from the same 
square and the same surrounding streets; he could not 
doubt the preference of the people for himself. But 
to what, in its uttermost, could it lead ? Only to civil 
war. His father was not a man to take a passage in 
a steamer at the first intimation to him of his own 
unpopularity. If fully convinced of it, he might 
prefer his accumulated scrip to a struggle with a 
hostile people ; but he would not be easily convinced, 
and he had the temper of the bull-dog. 

The night was moonlit and serene; across the 

422 


chap, xxviii HELIANTHUS 


423 

masses of foliage of his gardens he could see the 
distant peaks of Mount Atys, faint and ghastly 
against the starlit skies on the other side of the bay 
of Helios. 

Was Ilia sleeping under the guard of those snows 
as virginal as the white hills of her breast ? Had she 
any memory in her dreams of him ? Was he not 
farther away from her than ever, now that he was 
direct heir to that crown which had been seized bv 
Theodoric ? 

The overwhelming desire to be in her presence 
was stronger than any prudence, either for his own 
sake or hers. Six months had passed since he 
had looked upon her face. The night was the long 
night of October ; it had been evening when he had 
entered Helios ; and, under the plea of fatigue, he 
had seen only two or three of his gentlemen, the 
most faithful and attached. When he dismissed 
these and retired for the night, he said to himself: 
c She rises with the sun at all seasons ; I can go there 
at dawn and return by eight o’clock in the forenoon.’ 

His absence would probably be noticed by his 
household, but he knew that he could trust the 
most devoted of them to conceal it from the rest ; 
they would attribute it to some amatory tryst. He 
did what he had often done when on less innocent 
errands bent : he went down into his gardens and 
opened a little postern gate which led into the courts 
at the back of the palace where the stables, coach- 
houses, and other buildings were situated. All was 
still and closed, men and animals slumbered ; the 
sentinels stationed there challenged, then recognising 
him, presented arms. He opened the door of the 
spacious line of loose boxes, in which his riding horses 


424 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


were kept ; awakened one of his fleetest favourites, 
saddled her, and led her out by one of the gates, the 
sentinels of course remaining immovable. He was 
sure of their silence. He locked the door of the 
courtyard behind him, holding the mare by her bridle; 
then mounted and rode towards the Gate of Olives 
on the other side of the city. 

It was scarcely daybreak ; heavy mists hung over 
the sea, and as he went down the southern quay the 
air blew on him cold and refreshing as a draught from 
a mountain stream. Some fishermen, some men-of- 
war sailors, some dockyard labourers, alone passed 
him ; the sentinels on the quay saluted as their 
comrades had done ; there was no one else abroad in 
the dusk of the chilly autumn morn of which the 
shadows and the vapours hid Mount Atys from his 
sight. He rode as fast as it was possible to do on 
the slippery marble of the paven roads, and when he 
reached the barrier of the south-west gate the way to 
it was blocked by long strings of ox carts, and mule 
carts, and flocks and cattle, and laden asses, and 
peasants mounted and on foot, who had waited 
wearily there ever since the small hours of the 
night. 

c The accursed Octroi ! ’ thought Othyris. c The 
most brutal of all the taxes, save the blood-tax ! 
Can they find no better way to get the money 
they squander than to keep the husbandman out 
of his bed two-thirds of the night, and make 
his poor animals footsore and famished before 
sunrise ? ’ 

The guards, sleepy and sullen, were drawing back 
the huge bolts of the iron gates, swearing savagely 
at the throngs gathered there. With a sharp and 


xxviii HELIANTHUS +a 

stern rebuke to them, as they, in fear and trem 
bling, recognised him, Othyris passed through under 
the ancient portcullis into the familiar country road 
which wound up into the hills beyond. When he 
had got rid of the waiting crowd of patient labourers 

seeds' of the'fieM uP risen > the fresh 

A fieldsw u ere blown about on the change- 
ful Winds, the wreaths of mists were drifting whiter 
and whiter at each moment; the great cresfs’ of the 

cYouds 7 hT H W f e Hfted u ° nC by ° ne 0ut of the 
He rode as fast as steepness of the path 
would permit, towards that hermitage which had 
been scarcely absent an hour from his Thoughts since 
he had last been there on that memorable day when 
the people of Helios had remembered Illyris. "Every 

DaTh : dUmp ° f tUSS ° ck g rass bes ' de the 

path, all the falling waters, some broad and deep as 

orrents some mere threads of rippling moisture, all 

mvr^h h 668 , eanm g down over the rocks and 
myrtle bushes, all were familiar and welcome to him 
and as the morning light widened and the winds’ 

lTke h r ,lm d ’ t „ he , re P° Sf ; and beauty of the place sank 
like balm into his soul. It was still so early that the 
dews were heavy and the sun had not reached these 

W °°,? ’i° n ^ j C L 3r and s °fr mn light awakened the 
woodlarks and the redcaps, and shone, green and 
^ ra " a P arent > through the branches of the oaks and 

His heart beat fast, and anxiety quickened his 
breath as he drew nearer and nearer to the house 
and passed the spot where he had met Ilia beside 

if- °u ld uT\ S bler ' That sh y ness of the true lover, 
which he had never felt before, came over him and 
made him fear that he should have no welcome. To 


426 HELIANTHUS chap. 

all others he was the heir of the throne, to her he 
was but her humble servant in his own sight, and 
less than that in hers. Had his letters made any way 
for him into her sympathies? He could not tell. He 
feared that there was no response in her to his own 
feelings. His soul had crossed the gulf of difference 
which divided them, but hers remained aloof upon 
a distant shore. 

It was still early in the earliest hours of morning 
when Othyris reached the last portion of the bridle- 
path up which it was possible to urge a horse. He 
heard the sound of plough-oxen being urged by a 
human voice, but they were distant, far down in the 
twilight of the foliage, and he saw nearer to him two 
little lads with wooden tubs on their shoulders — 
such tubs, cone-shaped, as are used to carry water in 
drought or grapes in vintage-time. No doubt they 
were the younger sons of Janos, going to gather roots 
or fruits that did not grow at this altitude. He 
called to them and they stumbled up through the 
rank grass, frightened but obedient, for they recog- 
nised him. He gave them the bridle of the mare to 
hold, and said a word in her ear which she under- 
stood, bidding her wait there ; then he went up on 
foot to the house, standing in the deep shadows of 
its great trees. 

He saw Ilia on the threshold; she was throwing 
grain to the pigeons ; the tamed dove of Illyris sat 
on her shoulder, and watched its wilder cousins eat 
and fight and flutter. 

She looked so serene, so content, so wholly satis- 
fied with these simple things, with only that shadow 
of sadness which the death of Illyris had left her, 
that Othyris could not think that he had been re- 


XXVIII 


HELIANTHUS 


427 


membered or regretted. He paused on the edge of 
the rough grass and the wild rose-bushes. 

His shadow fell across the turf, and the dog Ajax 
came towards him with welcome and recognition. 
She looked up and let fall the boxwood bowl of grain! 
She did not speak. She stood still in the shock of 
surprise ; she had not known that he had arrived in 
Helios. 

‘ Have I done wrong ? ’ he said, as he stood with 
uncovered head. £ May I hope for welcome ? Or, if 
that is too much, for pardon ? * 

She was silent still ; he could not see on her coun- 
tenance any expression of her emotions, any reflec- 
tion of her mind ; she stood with the flock of pigeons 
at her feet ; the dove had flown on to the ivy of the 
roof. Was she indifferent ? W^as she angered ? 
Was she thinking of the change in his position, or of 
the confessions of his letters ? He could not tell. 
With his hand on the dog’s head he stood before 
her. 

‘ Have you no word for me ? ’ he said humbly. 

c What would you have me say?’ she murmured. 

‘ What have I to do with you? You are to rule in 
Helianthus.’ 

c In some far-off future — or more likely never. 
Such a change was always possible. What has it to 
do with you and me ? Will you not let me enter ? 
Enter at least into his chamber ?’ 

c If you wish.’ 

She drew back and signed to him to pass her. 
Emotion, embarrassment, astonishment, were all so 
unusual in her life, so alien to her temperament, that 
they confused her; she could not either welcome or 
repulse him. All he had done for her forbade 


428 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


the one ; all he had written to her, and all that 
circumstance made him and gave him, forbade the 
other. 

‘ I cannot pass before you/ he said with a smile. 

She understood ; he might be what he would to 
the rest of the world ; there at Aquilegia he chose 
to be only the scholar, the disciple, the pilgrim, who 
had stood before the hero of Argileion and Samaris. 

She entered the house and opened the door of the 
book-room, in which the hundreds of volumes, the 
great leather chair, the elmwood table, laden with 
papers and old manuscripts, were all as they had 
been in the lifetime of the Master. 

Othyris stood silent a few moments in respectful 
memory as men may stand beside a tomb. 

Then he turned to Ilia. 

‘You received my letters?" 

‘Yes." 

‘ Did you read them ? * 

A faint colour rose over her face. ‘Yes, and then 
I destroyed them." 

‘ Why ? Do you think me a coward, or what they 
said untrue ? " 

‘ No, neither." 

‘ Could you not have answered them ? ' 

‘ Silence answered them." 

‘ Silence means many things." 

‘ I thought you would understand — between you 
and me there can be no correspondence, there can be 
no sympathy." 

‘Why?" 

. c Wl }y ? I have often told you. Now it is more 
impossible than ever. You are the heir to the 
throne." 


XXVIII 


HELIANTHUS 


429 


No one, no law, no nation, can make me accept 
that position unless I choose. I can say nothing 
more than I have in those letters. I am yours in 
any way, by any bond, you choose/ His words 
broke down in an impatient sigh. ‘ But nothing 
t at I can say moves you more than a marble mask 

is moved. And yet * 

He was about to say : c I have suffered for your 
sake, I have lost a part of my life ! * 

But he checked the words unuttered. He would 
not remind her of her debt to him. 

Ilia did not answer. 

She stood by the great leather chair against the 
casement, through which a green light fell through 
the leaves of the ivy. She was prepared for his 
words by his letters ; but she was unprepared for 
his presence, and for the effect it had on herself. 
In the well without, those letters of his had perished* 
soaked in the deep, cold water of the subterranean 
spring ; but many of their lines had been burnt into 
her memory before she had dropped them into their 
tomb. Their recollection made her nervous, timid, 
self-conscious, ashamed, all that she had never been 
before ; the weakness of sex awoke in her. 

She leaned her hand on the back of the old black 
chair as if to gain courage and strength from its 
contact ; the green cool light falling through the ivy 
leaves flickered on her face. She felt the passion of 
his gaze burn into her inmost being. That he loved 
her greatly she could not doubt; that he might 
become dear to her she felt with terror. She heard 
the stern and haughty voice of Platon Illyris saying : 
c What have you, my daughter, to do with the 
House of Gunderode? ’ 


43 ° 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c Listen, sir,’ she said, gently but with firmness, 
to Othyris, ‘ I am sensible of all we owe to you. 
I am conscious of what you have suffered for our 
sakes. I grieve for it. I cannot repay you all you 
have done for us. It is impossible to put into 
words my sense of it. But do not come here. You 
only pain me, and compromise yourself. You be- 
long to the people of Helianthus. You are not free 
to do what you choose or what you wish. You are 
theirs : at once their lord and their servant.’ 
c But if I will not be either ? ’ 
c You cannot escape your obligations.’ 

‘Why not? It is a yoke laid on me by the 
accident of birth. I have the right to reject it if I 
choose.’ 

c You could not change yourself if you did,’ she 
said sadly. ‘You could not wash the blood of 
Theodoric out of your veins. You could not be 
otherwise than one of the princes of his House 
though you beggared yourself or swept the streets. 
We are what we are born, till death releases us.’ 

‘ Those are ideas of a world that is dead,’ he said, 
with anger and impatience. ‘ Ideas of the days of 
blood-feud, of inherited hatreds, of Capulet and 
Montagu, of Monteuki and Salimbeni. Surely we 
belong to a calmer and colder time when the sins of 
the father are not visited on the children. We have 
lost much, but we have gained something. The 
chief of our gains is surely the temperate spirit of 
modern feeling.’ 

‘ It is indifference, it is often even mere cynicism, 
that which you praise. There are wrongs which 
cannot die, which should not die, as long as memory 
lives.’ 


XXVIII 


HELIANTHUS 


43i 


‘ If y° u had any regard for me, you would have 
no memory but that/ 
c Perhaps/ 

She spoke almost sorrowfully, almost regretfully. 
What she had felt for him in his absence died away 
in his presence. 7 

He felt that it did so. It filled him with despair. 

Is there any one living fitter to reign in Heli- 
anthus than you — fitter in body, in mind, in 
race ? ’ 

c Oh, sir, you are mad ! ’ she said in mingled 
anger and fear. ‘ Quite mad ! I ! False to all the 
creeds and traditions I have inherited ? Apostate to 
all the religion of my people? Could 1 be so, the 
women of Helios would have a right to stone me in 
their streets/ 

£ They would fling the roses of Helianthus under 
your feet. Would to God I could prove it to you ! 
You have the blood in your veins of the liberator of 
this country/ 

c Whom they allowed to live thirty years above 
their seashore, poor, alone, forgotten ! They scarcely 
knew that he was amongst them. Who buried him 
where the great dead lie ? You ; not they/ 

£ Yes, it was they, not I, whom my father feared/ 
c Would your father admit that he feared them ? * 
‘I know not; I know that he did so/ 

She was silent ; she felt that she must seem to 
him thankless, callous, unworthy of all that he had 
done, and was ready to do; and her own heart 
trembled within her; she was afraid of it, afraid of 
its weakness, afraid of its betrayal of herself. 

‘If I had any feeling for you/ she said, with 
more passion than had been ever in her voice, ‘ if 


43 2 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


what would it be ? An insult to my race, a curse to 
myself. You? You and I? It would be sacri- 
lege ! * 

c Wherefore ? Mutual love has healed the wounds 
of feuds before now in many a human history/ 
c It is not a feud. It was the betrayal of an 
Iscariot, that which your forefather did to Platon 
Illyris/ 

c Perhaps, but it was not my sin/ 
c You cannot cleanse yourself from it. You may 
be called to ascend the throne to-morrow/ 

c And I would refuse the throne unless you 
shared it/ 

c I ? My people would rise from their graves to 
strike me. How can you say such things to me ? * 
Some consciousness of the immense force of a 
great passion dawned on her ; some sense that it 
was irresistible as a forest fire. She rose, and threw 
her veil about her head. 

c These are all useless words/ she said to him. 
c Between you and me there is a great gulf fixed ; it 
is as deep as the Hellespont, and I will drown in it 
like Helle/ 

She entered the house, and his heart sank within 
him. 

Othyris found the mare chafing restlessly at her 
inaction, and rode her at dangerous speed down the 
steep road back to Helios and through the Gate of 
Olives. He was in time to enter by the back courts 
of his palace, and regained his apartments seen by 
few of his household, and confident that of those few 
none were likely to be indiscreet enough to talk of 
his absence in those early morning hours. His life 
had been erratic and adventurous ; his courtiers 


XXVIII 


HELIANTHUS 


433 


knew well that no quality in them was so favourably 
seen by him as that of discretion. They knew him 
too well to anger him by prying into his amorous 
secrets. 


CHAPTER XXIX 

The funeral of the late Crown Prince was a great 
spectacle, a military pageant of the first order ; only 
that of the King could have surpassed it. The 
body was placed upon a gun-carriage, like a dead 
god upon his altar, and the princes, his brothers, 
with a galaxy of foreign princes, their relations, fol- 
lowed it ; all of them in full uniform and mounted 
on splendid chargers. If the music played by the 
massed bands had not been so slow, so mournful, and 
so. solemn, the procession might easily have been 
mistaken for a wedding march or a conqueror’s 
entry. The population of the capital was in the 
streets, dumb, sullen, yet magnetised by the grandeur 
of the show. In no city of the world has the 
populace the courage to display its disapproval by 
closing its shutters before a pageant. 

At that same hour another man was being carried 
to his end ; carried a short journey from the mattress 
on which he had died to the dissecting table in the 
floor below in the great central hospital dedicated to 
St. Elizabeth. He had been a good man all his 
days, a worker in the docks ; he had reared a large 
family with honesty and kindness ; they had most of 
them emigrated at an age when they began to grow 
useful ; two only were now alive, labouring men in 

434 


chap, xxix HELIANTHUS 


435 

the western hemisphere ; he had been long ill and 
out of work ; he had suffered from tumour in the 
liver ; he had been promised a cure at the great 
hospital; he had found only death. There was 
none to pay the fee which permits the removal of 
a body from the hospital; his wife was weeping 
miserably outside the gates ; she could not buy the 
right to bury him ; his remains were laid on the 
dissecting table, and the instruments of the students 
searched his inmost parts, traced the network of his 
veins, scooped out his brain, sawed his spine in 
sections. The sounds of the military music, the 
passing of the troops, the boom of the funeral guns, 
rolled through the operating-room from an adjacent 
street. 

The contrasts of life are too sharp, and its dispari- 
ties are too great. 

At ten o clock on the day following the funeral 
Othyris went to his first interview with his father ; a 
meeting which both would have been equally willing 
to avoid had such avoidance been possible. 

John of Gunderode received him in the room in 
which he spent most of his indoor hours, surrounded 
by the modern substitutes for the thunderbolt of 
Zeus and the wand of Proteus. He was seated 
before his bureau on a revolving chair, and he 
wheeled round and faced his son, with a sign dis- 
missing the attendant officials. His olive cheeks 
were pale and their flesh was flabby ; his eyes were 
sullen and restless ; in his teeth was the inevitable 
cigarette ; he had rarely known embarrassment, but 
he knew it then. 

Othyris felt none. He was cold, resentful, paying 


43 6 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


to the smallest iota all the deference demanded of 
him ; but to the King this extreme ceremony seemed 
irony, although any lack of it would have appeared 
to him offence. 

John of Gunderode had never felt impatience 
before ; but now he was totally powerless to undo 
this knot which fate had tied, to rid himself of the 
successor whom he hated, of the revolutionary whom 
he feared. Judging Othyris by himself, he opined 
that now, being immediate heir to the throne, his 
son would cease to be a revolutionary, but would 
not for that reason cease to be a foe. He was con- 
vinced that Elim, impatient to reign, would use his 
popularity with the masses to dethrone himself. 

The two men were in strong contrast. The 
King's stout and stunted figure filled his revolving 
writing-chair without grace, his eyebrows were drawn 
together in a gloomy gravity, his skin was yellower 
than before ; he had neglected to dye his hair, and 
patches of grey showed in it ; his teeth were shut, 
and scarcely unclosed for speech; he looked like an 
adjutant, like a merchant, like the head of a depart- 
ment worried and incensed by matters offensive and 
odious which could not be altered or controlled. 

# His son stood before him in the full light from the 
windows, pale as the dead Adonis, fair as the Sun- 
god of the poets, tall, slender, calm, and cold ; with 
a great weariness upon him, but with no weakness; 
a man who forgot nothing, and who, if he forgave, 
did so only because his own conception of duty 
made it incumbent on him. 

His father understood that he himself had been in 
error in his estimate of one whom he had considered 
a visionary, an anarchist, a fool. He received an 


XXIX 


HELIANTHUS 


437 


impression of his own incapacity to dominate his 
successor which was new and odious to him. 

Force at the present moment was out of the 
question. Persuasion had never been one of the 
methods of the monarch. What he required in the 
heir to the Crown was a copy of himself, acquiescence 
in all his own views and acts ; a will servilely copying 
his own will, and promising him for the future, when 
he should be no more, the continuation of his own 
influence, the development of his own projects and 
his own home and foreign policy. 

To hope for this from Elim was to indulge in a 
baseless vision. There could be no continuity of 
action and opinion between him and a man who was 
in every way his opposite, who had no more similarity 
to his own absolutism than Vergniaud had to a Ver- 
saillais. If he died that day and Elim reigned in his 
stead, he knew all that he had done would be undone : 
that the Guthonic alliance would be broken, that the 
military dominance would beat an end, that the net- 
work of policies which he had been at such pains to 
weave would be swept away like a cobweb, that the 
whole future of absolutism which he had built up 
under the cover of constitutionalism would be pushed 
down like a child s sand castle. The country was 
ready to welcome such changes — setting aside its 
bureaucracy and some portion of its aristocracy. Of 
the existence of revolutionary feeling in the army 
itself he had been long aware. The rank and file 
were ready to throw down their arms at the first 
propitious moment. 

His dead son could have been trusted never to 
allow that moment to arrive, but his actual heir 
would certainly hasten its advent. For the first 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


43 8 


time in his reign his astute and obstinate mind found 
itself baffled. In such difficulties, the rulers of large 
armies and disposers of large exchequers are able to 
launch their nation into some racial feud or flattering 
conquest, and in the ferment and wrath thus excited 
make their peoples forget their hatred of compulsory 
service and bend their backs under the knapsack. 
But Helianthus could not be thus launched into 
oblivion and war-fever. Her allies kept her immov- 
able ; her finances were limited ; her power to move 
alone was small, almost nil ; in Europe her cannon 
would not be allowed to fire ; in savage and distant 
States she had renounced her share in that butchery 
which is called the crusade of civilisation. Candor, 
since she had become Imperia, did not allow her 
friends to stop a ball or hold a wicket in the great 
game she played in the Dark Continent. Now and 
then she called to a crew of a Helianthine battleship 
to come ashore and field for her on some barbaric 
coast or uncertain frontier ; but this was very rarely, 
and neither navy nor army of Helianthus dared move 
without her. 

All these thoughts passed through the King’s 
brain as he sat in that silence which was his constant 
refuge in any difficult moment. 

In his successor he wanted a careful and exact 
continuance of his own work ; in Elim he could only 
see the destroyer of it. 

The interview was ceremonious, strictly confined 
to that which the moment demanded, with a rigid 
limitation on both sides to what was necessary and 
politic. By neither was there spoken a single 
superfluous word ; between them there could 
not be either confidence or candour; they were 


XXIX 


HELIANTHUS 


439 


enemies, and consanguinity only intensified an- 
tagonism. 

The King felt less contempt for his son than 
efore but he felt also, more strongly, that between 
himself and Elim there could never be other than 
enmity of the most bitter kind. He had thought 
nis second son a weak and dreamy enthusiast, but he 
recognised now that behind these ideals and phantasies 
which seemed so miserably absurd to himself, there 
was something of the iron of the Gunderode tempera- 
ment, as yet latent but existent, and likely to grow 
harder as youth passed. Whatever it might become, 
he knew that it would be inimical to himself, contrary 
to all his plans, his ambitions, his ruling power. 

When he had intimated to Othyris that in his 
present position it would be necessary to renounce 
the friendships and preferences which had been 
notably his choice hitherto, his son had briefly replied 
that he could not be unfaithful either to his friends 
or to his faiths ; and the monarch had felt that he 
would have no power to make him so. 

c You must surely perceive the indecency of such 
sentiments in your changed position,’ he said with 
ill-restrained wrath. 

c I perceive, sire, the indecency of changing a 
principle merely because a situation has changed,’ 
replied Othyris. c I hope that I shall never be guilty 
of it/ 

c The heir to the throne cannot be a revolutionist! ’ 
c I have led no revolution, sire.’ 

‘ Because you were arrested in time to prevent your 
doing so.’ 

c Your Majesty has been misinformed. I attended 
a funeral ; I assisted in a reparation ; I did no more.’ 


440 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


c The military court judged otherwise/ 

C I cannot help its incorrect opinions. Your 
Majesty did not deign to question me yourself/ 

£ I do not consider that my prerogative extends to 
interference with the sentences of military tribunals, 
especially where a member of my family is the 
offender. You had every facility given you for 
defence. If you did not avail yourself of such 
facilities, the fault was yours. Your replies offended 
your judges, who certainly would have been better 
pleased if they could have acquitted you/ 

‘ They did their duty doubtless as they saw it. I 
trust your Majesty will believe that I also did mine 
as I saw it/ 

‘ There was no question of duty in your case. 
There were only insubordination and offence/ 

‘ I regret that your Majesty sees my conduct in 
that light/ 

The King gave utterance to a short, harsh sound, 
half laugh, half curse. 

‘ If I order you now to return to Hydaspe and 
fulfil the remainder of your sentence ? * 
c I go, sir, of course, instantly/ 

His father’s half-shut, gloomy, penetrating eyes 
looked at him in inquisitive scepticism. He was 
strongly tempted to take his son at his word and 
send him back to the saline marshes of the east coast. 
But his inclinations never ran away with his judgment 
or his passions with his prudence. His sense of what 
was best for himself was always his guiding con- 
sideration. He knew how his Cabinet, his Senate, 
his Chamber, his people in general would view such 
an action. 

‘That is impossible now/ he said curtly. ‘I 


XXIX 


HELIANTHUS 


441 


regret that seclusion and solitude have not produced 
a greater change in your character and opinions. I 
hope that the great responsibilities which have 
devolved on you may produce more effect.’ 

With these words he intimated that the interview 
was over, and turning to his bureau put the acoustic ’ 
tube to his ear. 


There was a secret chamber which opened out of 
the King’s study. It had been made when that 
portion of the Soleia had been builded by the 
Byzantine emperors. The gyration of the panel 
which was movable, was undiscoverable by any one 
to whom the secret was unknown; and it contained 
a hidden lock, of which the key had been handed 
down by Theodoric to his son, and by his son to his 
successor. An old monk of an oriental monastery 
had given the secret and the key to Theodoric as 
price of the permission to his order to remain 
unmolested on their rocky eyrie on the northern 
mountains of Helianthus. Theodoric and the monk 
had long been dead, but the key had been trans- 
mitted to the reigning monarch ; and the barefooted, 
unwashed, famished anchorites still paced their stony 
corridors, and lighted their bronze lamps, and intoned 
their wild litanies, in the recesses of the R Haitian 
alps. 

The sea-front of the Soleia stood directly on the 
quay, without any intervening wall or garden. The 
window of the secret chamber was concealed from 
without; it was closed by a marble panel carved to 
correspond with the exterior carvings, and turned on a 
steel swivel of elaborate and ingenious workmanship. 
It was characteristic of the present Kings carefulness 


442 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


and prudence in all things great and small that he 
remembered to keep the mechanism in good order, 
and with his own hands oiled it twice or thrice a year, 
and moved it to prevent rust. The chamber within 
was square, small, lofty ; all of stone ; the signs of 
the Zodiac were sculptured on one of the walls ; 
when the narrow aperture was open, the person 
within looked on the great marble quay which 
separated the palace from the sea. 

The key, which was very small, the King carried in 
a locket containing a miniature of his first wife, the 
bride of his boyhood. No one, not even her son, 
had ever asked him to open that locket ; every one 
knew that its original had been a homely, unlovely 
person, with the ruddy skin, the short-sighted eyes, 
the high cheekbones, the large teeth, of the Guthonic 
physiognomy. There were many portraits of her in 
the palaces and castles occupied by the Gunderode, 
and their original had been lying for over thirty 
years under the lead and cedar and silver of her triple 
coffin, never remembered by her husband or her 
son, or by the people who had acclaimed her on her 
bridal. 

According to the custom of his House the King 
had confided the fact of the existence of the retreat to 
the Crown Prince, so that it should be known by his 
successor in case of his own sudden death. But he 
had never shown the Crown Prince more than the 
key and the trick of the panel ; the less any one of 
his sons knew, the better ; he did not even exempt 
the devotion of Theo from that conclusion. It was 
also characteristic of him that in all the years during 
which he had been aware of the existence of this 
closet, no man or woman had ever heard of it from 


XXIX 


HELIANTHUS 


443 


him, or seen him enter or leave it. This was the 
strength of the King : he was sufficient to himself. . 

The secret had gone to the grave with Theo ; it 
should, by precedent, be passed on to the new Crown 
Prince ; the monarch was bound to have one living 
holder of the knowledge in case of his own sudden 
death by disease or assassination. But John of 
Gunderode, as he stood in the dim cell-like chamber, 
said to himself that he would not part with that 
secret to his present heir ; it should sooner die with 
himself. Why not? It was only a matter of 
personal security ; a refuge in case of personal 
danger ; it had no importance to the nation, or 
interest for the State; it was as. wholly his own 
property as the signet-ring on his finger. Elim 
should live and reign, if circumstance allowed, 
without that knowledge. There was so much that 
he was obliged to reveal to his heir ; to allow, .to 
share, to confide, so sorely against his own will. 
This, at least, he could withhold. Some day, to 
have thus withheld it would perchance be useful. 

This power of unswerving reticence was the King’s 
great strength, a strength which made up for what 
was limited and ordinary in his intelligence. . c Keep 
your tongue behind your teeth/ says the Helianthine 
proverb, ( and you are master of men. 

Helianthus, he considered, would be too small a 
realm to hold both him and Elim. All unshared 
knowledge is power of a sort ; he kept what he had 
got. 

He looked through the aperture out on to the 
scene beneath. The southern quay of the city was 
immediately below, with its marble walls and piers, 
its long graceful jetty running out into the blue 


444 


HELIANTHUS 


CHAP. 


water, its basins where the royal craft of all kinds 
was anchored, the offing crowded by vessels of his 
own and other nations, lying at anchor ; some for 
defence, some for pleasure, most of them for trade. 

The beauty of the scene was great ; the gleaming 
marbles, the hyacinth-blue skies, the waters — here the 
colours of a dove’s throat, there of a kingfisher’s 
wings ; here green as an arum leaf, and there white as 
an arum flower — the heaven-pointing masts and the 
many-hued canvas of the shipping, and across the 
bay the peaks and slopes of the Mount Atys range, 
all made up a picture of radiant charm, charged 
with many august memories of the past. But the 
King was not a man to think of such things as 
these, or note their meaning. He looked as the 
surveyor, as the engineer, looks ; and in his trained 
soldier’s eyes measured, studied, appraised. 

A shot from that secret place, from a sure hand, 
noiseless and smokeless, would take certain death down 
into a crowd passing along the broad white paven 
quay. No, he thought, his son should not know of 
that chamber. He closed the aperture, and left the 
cell: the panel fell back into its place, its hinges 
hidden and its lines united under the carven wreaths 
of leaf and blossom. He was a practical man ; 
having decided that silence was the better part he 
kept silence, and dismissed the subject from his mind. 

It was a very orderly mind ; it resembled a well- 
arranged medicine-chest; every separate drug was 
labelled and ready for use, and if it contained some 
poisons it was only because poison is as necessary, 
and sometimes as useful, and even as healing, as is 
the sedative or the tonic. Above all, he was wise in 
this : he never left his medicine-chest unlocked. 


XXIX 


HELIANTHUS 


445 

The King had been greatly incensed by the demon- 
strations °f joy at the return of Othyris. He con- 
sidered that the city and the nation ought to be dumb 
and paralysed by woe. The loss of such a prince as 
Theo seemed to him only equalled in history by the 
death of Marcellus ; a not appropriate parallel. All 
his dominant and imperious temper was in revolt at 
thesubjugation of his will by circumstances over which 
e had no control. He was accustomed to alter to 
bend, to undo to build up, the circumstances of his 
own life, and the lives of others, with success and 
without interference. He could ill stoop to receive 
the blows of an undesired fate, the opposition of an 
antagonistic character. Within his own realm he 
was supreme ; and the limitations enforced on him 
outside it were sufficient annoyance to his arrogant 
temper without internecine or family feud. 

The mere casual germ of an ordinary disease had 
been enough to alter and reverse all his plans, his 
intentions, and his arbitrary will. Before it he had 
been as helpless as a pauper in a poorhouse. He felt 
rage rather than grief that he should be thus abased 
to the level of the ordinary sons of men. 

One thought alone was prominent in his angry 
mind : Elim must never reign. 







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